Everybody Dies
by Dannemund
Summary: Joey is playing with fire in the ghoul city of St. James; Dr. Mona Donald creates a monster using her limited knowledge of ghoul neurobiology. Stories of the people in St. James. A continuation of my other fiction, It's Not Forever. Rated M for violence, drug use, more swearing than ever, creepy rapist head talk, and sexual innuendos/assault.
1. Good Morning St James

Note: This is a continuation of It's Not Forever, so I strongly suggest you read that first (just skip to chapter 5 already, _sheesh_ ), because there are definitely spoilers. This story is a lot darker, too, consider that fair warning. This one is for Anonymous-Dragon :)

* * *

 _"Lionel?" she sniffled again. "What is St. James?"  
He worked his jaw, angrily. "A ghoul city," he said. "People went there when they still thought there was a cure for it."  
"St. James is not a nice place," Lilian said, drowsily. "I don't think you should go there at all, Celia."_

\- It's Not Forever, Chapter 9

* * *

16 SEPTEMBER 2176

MORNING

* * *

" _Goooooood morning St. James!_ How are we, today? Are you putrescent even in the coolness of these autumn nights? Well, why not come out into the sun and look at that beautiful red sunrise out there, ladies and gents! What a _marvelous_ , simply _maaaarrrrvelous_ day to be alive and kicking on our enchanting little island! Today's forecast is sunny skies, no clouds at all, and a wonderful happy birthday to everyone's favorite _good_ doctor, Mona Donald!"

A low moan came from the corner of the small utility room. Shelving rattled as the "good doctor" stirred on the simple mattress. Mona sat up in her lonely bedroom, looking around blearily, and threw a shoe at the radio. It clattered to the floor, followed by a dusty size 7 pump. She hacked up a wad of phlegm and spat it across the room, then got out of bed and began her morning routine.

Check body for loose skin. Change clothes. Spit. Brush what teeth you have left. Drink coffee. Eat instamash, imagine that it is something else, oh, let's say, polenta. Spit. Flatten down remaining hair, check scalp for loose skin. Take mentats. Retrieve shoe, put on shoes. Put radio back together. Go down to the lobby.

"Good morning, Dr. Donald," Alexy Ilyin greeted her.

Mona glared at her employee, squinting. "Mains oo ee seen," she grumbled.

"Oh, and happy birthday!" he added, grinning. His mouth contorted into a truly nasty caricature of a jack-o-lantern. Mona had become used to the ghoul with the Glasgow smile, but today she wasn't in any mood to put up with his ghastly face, or his buoyant attitude.

"Ger off," she mumbled.

Ilyin nodded and wandered off through the double doors that led to the production floor. Mona looked around and assessed the agenda.

0800, initiate Pinch Protocol, if necessary. Work begins. Produce at least forty units of jet, ten units of jammer. Dispose of trash. Feed the test subjects.

1000, remove employees from work floor to Lab. Begin production of hotwater.

1200, cancel production of hotwater for lunch. Eat instamash, let's make it strawberry crepes today.

1300, begin production of Nuka-Blu. Receive shipment of datura, other base ingredients.

1500, clear work floors, boil and distill datura and other ingredients.

1700, release employees from work.

She nodded to herself. The day began, as usual, with Ilyin and Sorola arguing over who could drink the most Nuka-Blu in a ten-minute time frame. Mona refused to touch the grainy-tasting soda; she hated blueberries, anyway.

She watched them from her desk, making occasional notes, adjusting her microscope, staining slides. She'd collected a few creatures after yesterday's work concluded. The insects were dead and were examined immediately, but there was a new species that she was quite interested in. She re-examined the cells she'd prepared from the night before.

"Anything new with the critters?" Ilyin asked her.

She shrugged. "Nor mush."

"We still have to cut the hotwater with something less acid than those blueberries," Sorola added. "Any luck with that?"

Mona laid down a slide with a click and put her hands on the side of the desk, looking up at her employees. "Ler me oo my joh."

"Alright, alright," Sorola said. They went back to work. She pinched the skin that remained above her nasal cavity and took the samples below the facility to the testing area.

 _My pretties_ , she thought, smiling at the congregation of creatures that she'd assembled from the wastes. Here were ants, there was a swarm of bloatflies. Her _babies_ , the small rat-squirrel creatures she used in the majority of testing. Two radscorpions she'd been unsuccessful in breeding. She fed them all, petting the babies. She moved past their cages and down a ramp to the lower level, careful not to drop the samples.

Growling met her ears as she grew closer to the ferals, surreptitiously collected from the island wastes, former inhabitants of St. James. She peered into the cages, listened to the rattling of the metal, checking each one for further signs of change. Nothing yet. She made a note on the console in the corner and moved the samples to the chemistry set.

She'd almost forgotten to check on the smoothskin in the last cage. Mona moved down the hallway and looked around the corner, pulling the tarp off the last cage, and eyed the figure huddled against the mesh. She didn't look any different than before, but the stink rising from her flesh was quite foul. That had been a lucky find, a smoothskin about to undergo the change.

A small patch of skin flaked off as Mona watched, drifting down to the floor. The smoothskin's abdomen was cut open and the tubing inserted into her stomach was raw-looking. The tubing ran from it to an I.V. bag outside of the cage, and Mona changed this, switching it out for another bag. The dim light caught the bag and she saw the letters standing out against the pale liquid within. _FEV-3-fluoro..._ Mona set her mouth to the side and attached the tubing.

She sighed to herself. She'd not enjoyed having to bind the woman's hands, but the catheter was extremely important, and couldn't be removed. With all luck, her experiments would be helpful in eliminating some of the more disgusting physical changes. And if she were successful, she could evidence some change in the residents of St. James. Mona trudged back up to the chemistry set and went to work.

Ilyin called down to remind her of the time after she'd prepared some of the samples with additional chemicals and put others into various solutions for further research. "Hey, and Dr. Donald?" he yelled. "Joey's here."

Mona's hands shook as she put away the samples for later. _Joey._

She walked up the ramp, her legs wobbling and head fuzzy. _Joey._

She opened the door to the work floor and smiled in her own way. "O-ey," she cried, and the smoothskin girl flung herself at the ghoul woman, hugging her and laughing.

"Mona mama, I missed you!" Joey said.

"O-ey, I am nor mama," she chided.

"Close enough," the teenager said. "Mine's gone off the deep end." She smiled that brilliant smile of hers, and Mona's heart melted.

1200, bring Joey to town, buy her lunch. Eat instamash, why not try shark fin soup today?

* * *

" _Helloooooo ladies and gents!_ It's Mr. Strange here, with your daily dose of what's weird and wild in the wasteland! Hey, have you ever heard of a critter called _Chimera_?"

Foster swore, sat upright, and banged his head off the frame of the engine he was underneath. He fell back onto the floor, grimacing, and rubbed his forehead with the back of a hand. After a moment, he slid out and sat up.

"The Chimera was a fearsome beast, or so I hear told. The head of a lion, tail of a snake, with a goat in the middle..."

He ignored the ghoul deejay and examined his hands. _Dammit!_ Blood slipped down through the webbing of his thumb, across his palm, and dripping to the floor in a steady stream. Quickly, Foster moved across the garage floor and bandaged his hand carefully. He muttered silently to himself, then sat down to examine his hands.

He must have the nicest hands of all the ghouls on St. James. Still had all his skin, all his fingertips. Fingernails had gone, but nonetheless, his hands were damn nice. He sat on the small couch in the garage and ran his digits across the rough fabric of the couch and laughed at himself for being weird.

The garage door was open, and a woman walked by, eyeing him with what he was sure was a critical look, but he only saw Norma's drooping flesh crunch into a mess of tangled skin and blood vessels. Whatever, let the bitch glare. She was jealous, that was it. Foster growled to himself and clutched his hands to his chest, protecting them from the woman's animosity.

He leaned back on the couch, put his legs out on a metal box, and fought the urge to poke at the cut. His mind slipped away from him and he sat, listlessly, eyes hazed.

"I hear a rumor, and don't you get me wrong, I don't _listen_ to rumors, but this one is a _fine_ rumor to hear!" Mr. Strange's voice cut through his mind, bringing him back to the room. He sat up, stood, and looked at the time. _Must have had an absence seizure._ Damn, what if he had one of those while he was working on the engine? He felt his hands clench, and forced himself to relax.

"I hear a rumor that our _great_ doctor patron, that minx Dr. Mona Donald, has been making herself her very _own_ chimera. Doesn't that beat all? Mona baby, you simply _have_ to come see me and explain this one!"

Foster focused on the radio and crinkled the skin above his eyes. _What a story._ He rubbed his thumb absently and returned to the engine, careful not to let his bandage slip.

* * *

 _Pssssssss!_ the hissing sound echoed through the room.

Norma dropped the inhaler and let her hand trail down to the floor, her mind filled with the spinning colors and wobbling images that came from a hit of jammer. She breathed in deeply, and her breath became a merry-go-round in her chest, whirling around through her lungs.

Another hiss, and Ralph fell to the couch beside her, his raspy voice cutting through her head as carousel music, accompanying the horses and elephants and seals and unicorns that galloped through her chest in that moment.

"I hear everyone's _favorite_ smoothskin has been spotted on the island, again. Why not say 'Hi!' to Joey for me? I can't leave the station, you know..." the radio came on, flickering in the darkened house, and Ralph's head snapped around to look at it, drool flying from his chin.

"Fuck off, Strange," Ralph growled, and held his head. He stood, grabbed the radio, and hurled it to the floor, smashing it with a boot. "Fuck you! _Fuck you!_ "

Norma watched and she felt angry, but the anger flew out of her head in circles just like the carousel, and she uttered a guttural laugh. Ralph snarled at her, and his fingers were around her throat in an instant. She bucked up into him, throwing him off, slapping him across the face and putting her own hands on his throat. They rolled around for another few minutes before the jammer fried their brains so thoroughly that neither one could move.

Colors and shapes, floating through her vision, and Norma felt a thought tugging at the edge of her mind like a small child with a question. She gave to it, and listened carefully.

"You like the smoothy bitch, don't you, Ralph?" she asked, and her voice was full of scorn.

"Some boy fleshy wandered around you, you'd like him too," Ralph growled. Then he groaned, "Oh! God, those fucking _legs_!"

Norma felt the anger rise in her chest. "Fuck _you_ , Ralph," she muttered, and pushed herself off the floor, riding the crazy high of the jammer as she stumbled through the house and into the kitchen. She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise to the ceiling, blues and green and purples pulsing from the trail. Goddamn, she loved jammer.

It was the first hit of the chem that either one of them had had in over six months. That doctor bitch had raised the price and was producing less. Norma thought the doctor bitch needed to understand that her drugs weren't worth what she wanted for them. _Fuck_ her, anyway. And _fuck_ the little smoothy bitch too, running around with her _legs_ kicking up in the air. Bitch needed to go _home_ to _mama_ or Norma might take her switchblade to her face, carve up those black eyes like a crow plucking at carrion.

She twitched her hands. And fuck Foster, _too_ , with his _pretty_ little fingers that he thought were so _good_ and _nice_ that he had to rub it into her face. He did it all on purpose, tempting her with fingers that weren't mangled. She looked down, saw her torn-up hands playing with her knife. She laughed, stabbed it into the tabletop, and scrounged around the kitchen for something to eat.

Ralph was laying face down in the doorway, his eyes wide open. She pushed his head aside with a foot and stepped around him, looking for the tin can she used to store her caps. Where the fuck did it go? She was so fucking hungry, she could eat Ralph. She booted his leg and chortled as he started thrashing about on the ground. Black and blue echoes followed his movements, flying off into her vision like sharp knives.

She screamed at him, laughing hysterically. God _damn_! She fucking _loved_ jammer!

* * *

Alexy stacked up supply boxes in the storeroom and looked out into the Lab, his cheeks twitching. Joey sat on the desk beside Dr. Donald, babbling something about a cousin of hers. She was wearing a green dress, and her legs looked fantastic in it. Her feet kicked out, playfully. She extended her calf muscles, and for a moment Alexy could see chocolate skin all the way up to the middle of her thigh.

He looked away and let the feeling wash over him. Oh, _yes_. He wanted that. He wanted that so badly he would do damn near anything to have it. He laid a hand on top of the box in front of him and leaned his head into the wall, closing his eyes.

"Ginny is such a stupid bitch," Joey was saying. "She thinks she owns everything, you can't talk her out of it. I had this little doll thing, and it was mine, Uncle Avery gave it to me, and she fucking tries to steal it by saying it was hers!"

Dr. Donald looked up at the girl with a strange face, and Joey shook her head. "Nu-uh, Mona mama," she said. "I had a right to be mad."

Alexy removed himself from the storeroom and closed the door. He put his hands in his pockets and walked over to the desk, smiling as best he could at Joey. Joey looked up at him, grinned widely, and made a "pow-pow" gesture at him. Dutifully, he grasped his chest and collapsed to the floor.

Dr. Donald looked over at the ghoul on the floor, pretending to be in his death throes. She grumbled and shook her head. Alexy laid there for a moment, then sprang up and swept Joey into a dance across the Lab. Joey laughed, disentangled herself, and spun away from him.

"You're in a good mood, Alexy," she chuckled.

He saw the flushed cheeks, the eyes alight with happiness. He wished he could have that every day, come home to that, to her in an apron at his stove, dancing around while she cooked dinner. He'd never want to leave the house, _no, sir._ His face grew more serious. He'd never want to go to the Samson and drink himself half to death until he collapsed on the grimy floor and the bouncer Marcelo hauled him outside to sleep it off.

He had an idea... a bad one, but something to grab onto. "Hey," he said, spinning her back to him with a strong hand. "You wanna hit up the bar with me, later?"

A song ended and the radio crackled. "There's something on my mind, ladies and gents," Mr. Strange started up. "I just can't get my head around _this―_ why has the price of jammer gone up so much? All those drugs you folks inject, huff, ingest, or smoke, they've all gotten _three times_ as expensive. What's going on with _that_ , Mona?"

Joey was distracted by the radio broadcast. "What?"

Out of the corner of his eyes, Alexy saw Dr. Donald stand and remove her work from the desk, ambling off to another corner with a shake of her head. He pulled Joey up close, stuck his carved mouth near her ear and sighed. "Just come out with me, have a drink. Be something new to try."

Joey laughed, and pushed him away, removing his hands from her firm body. He would have gritted his teeth, but it gave away the game to show her how he felt. Instead, he thrust a hand into his pocket, put his weight on one leg and turned his head to look at her with a terrible smile. His fingers nervously worked over a cap in his pocket.

"Sure," she said, her shoulder relaxed, and a faint smile on her face. "We've gone before."

Which was true, but wasn't what he'd asked. When she'd gone with him before, he'd ended up miserable afterwards, less drunk than he wanted to be, and nothing to show for dragging a pretty smoothskin to a ghoul bar not particularly known for having a stellar reputation. His fingers twitched and the cap's edges dug into his flesh.

"What, you scared?" he asked, grinning now. "Can't handle a little whiskey?"

Oh, that was the ticket. She shot him such a look! He couldn't help but grin. Her face was a picture of irritation, and she rose to the challenge so perfectly he almost choked on his tongue in excitement.

"I'm not scared," she declared, her black eyes flashing at him. "I'll take whatever you got, Alexy."

The cap sliced into his finger and he could feel the blood seeping into his pocket. "I'll see you after work, then," was all he said, smiling gruesomely, and he wandered off, back to his duties.

 _Perfect. Just... perfect._ He could feel the excitement catching up to him, and had to duck into the bathroom to still the feeling, and to patch himself up. It would be a damn good night. A _damn_ good one.


	2. The Samson

16 SEPTEMBER 2176

EVENING

* * *

"Well, ladies and gents, it's that time again. I do so _hate_ to leave you with nothing but soothing music and sleepy tunes, devoid of my _amusing_ chatter, but even Mr. Strange needs his beauty sleep." Foster turned the radio off, glancing out the door of the garage. The sun was setting like a lamb, fading slowly into a dark blue blanket over the island. He put away his tools and shut the garage door with a clatter.

When he righted himself, he turned around to see Norma behind him. She looked pissed, too, and he bit his tongue against the words he wanted to say to her. "Hello, Norma," he said, instead.

"I saw you in there," she said, her eyes darting around him to the door. "I saw you _playing_ with your _fucking_ hands."

Foster frowned. "What the hell do you want, Norma," he asked. "I'm kind of busy."

She jabbed a mutilated finger into his face, and he could taste the chemical smell coming from her skin. She was high, and she was pissed, and he felt his chest flutter. The last time she'd confronted him outside the garage while high, he'd ended up with a concussion. She said nothing, just stared at him over the end of her ragged hand.

"Norma, look, if you want money, I'll just give it to you," he said. "Here." He fumbled in his pockets for a moment, then pulled out a handful of caps and thrust them out at her.

Norma dropped her hand to his and then his felt the pain, she was squeezing his hand over the crenellated edges of the bottle caps. "Dammit!" he swore, and jerked his hand away, tossing the caps all over the place. He looked to see if there was damage, tiny drops of blood raised along the awkward cuts in his flesh.

"You think you're so _DAMN LUCKY!?_ " she yelled, and her hands came together in a double fist, which she brought down on his head. Foster wasn't tall, not compared to the woman standing before him who must have been a damn Amazon in her prime. He grunted, and crumpled onto a mound of debris, his shoulder striking a loose piece of asphalt. It tumbled down to rest near his head.

"What the fuck, Norma!" he said, and grabbed the asphalt as he rose up from the ground. She cackled and he heard the distinct slick sound of a switchblade popping out.

No words were said as they circled. It seemed like it went on forever. Foster wasn't about to get himself sliced up over some stupidly perceived slight. Norma's eyes were wild in her rotting face, her mouth frozen into what looked like a grimace. She already had blood on her, the pale jacket she wore splattered with a large amount. He wondered if she'd killed someone. _Probably that cocksucker she lives with,_ he thought, frowning.

She lunged at him, jabbing with the knife. He ducked to the side but she moved with him and stabbed him in the side, nicking a rib. He yelped and smashed the asphalt down onto her head, dropping it from the jarring connection.

Norma stood up, shaking her head, and turned her face to his. The same grimace graced her features, and she held up the switchblade. Damn, he knew he wasn't strong enough to fend off a jammer junkie in full stride, but he'd never seen someone take a hit like that and keep going. He growled. "Get the fuck out of here, Norma!"

She made a snarling noise, more feral than he'd ever heard, and lunged again. This time, he got a boot up and into her stomach before she reached him. She flew backwards and Foster hightailed it away from the garage as fast as his feet would carry him, cradling his hands to his chest.

* * *

Mona sighed, pinched her skin above what used to be a nose, and stared down the corridor at the growling of the ferals. She reached out, shuffled some paperwork, and turned off the lamp, carrying the papers to the work floor.

Joey was singing, her voice echoing along the corridors of the facility, and Mona smiled a little. She was happy, so Mona was happy. It was terrible, that such a young smoothskin had to come to a despicable ghoul city just to feel at home, but Mona felt so much better having the teenager around that she would not complain. She knew the effects of dopamine, and she imagined the neurotransmitters in her head releasing endorphins, feeling the wonderful goodness creeping through her brain.

But Joey couldn't stay long, she knew. Her mother would send out someone to retrieve her before the end of the day, likely. Within two days, Joey would be hauled off by her young man. Mona sighed. The girl didn't even notice that the man was in desperate love with her, could care less about smoothskin people. It was sad and Mona didn't know how to make her understand she belonged with her own family, away from the island where so many awful things might happen.

From what Joey had reluctantly told her, the reason for this individual visit was that her mother had finally put her foot down on one of Joey's ill-formed antics―stealing. Joey said she'd found some old revolver in her mother's dresser and was trying to shoot at bottles with it when her mother found her out and, " _freaked_ out. Didn't get loud, just got creepy-quiet and slapped me. I dunno why, the damn gun didn't even work, anyway."

Mona put down the paperwork and stared at her workstation, the chemicals that had been cleaned up and put away, then her eyes caught the sharp edge of a knife mark on the bottom drawer. She stopped herself, reached down, and unlocked the drawer. With a grunt she pulled it open and looked down into the emptiness, and was shocked.

Someone had taken the bottle of hotwater from her desk. She slammed it shut and flew down the hallway, her feet stumbling down the metal paths, and fell against the door of the bathroom. " _O-EY!_ " she cried, banging on the door in a panic. A broom fell across the hallway behind her, clattering to a stop on the opposite wall.

A click, and the girl opened the door, looking concerned. She had been bathing herself, bare brown skin glistening in the fluorescence of the lights above them. "What's the matter, Mona?"

With some effort, Mona managed to croak out about the missing bottle and ask if Joey had taken it. "No, _ma'am!_ " Joey said, emphatically. Her eyes were wide and a little scared. "I know better than to touch _that_ shit."

Mona sighed in relief, and slid her hands down the side of the door frame. Joey caught her, picked her up with strong arms, and walked her down the hall to her tiny utility closet bedroom. "Go to bed, Mona mama," the girl whispered in her ear-hole. "You'll figure it out in the morning, I know you will."

The ghoul nodded, let herself be put onto the mattress by the dripping young smoothskin, and closed her eyes.

"Hey, but you all have a _nice_ night, and be good! Goodnight to my ladies and gents, and goodnight to our _good_ doctor, Mona Donald!" the radio faded away as she fell into sleep, nodding to herself.

* * *

Alexy looked up at himself in the cracked mirror of his own bathroom, and touched his cheeks. As a ghoul, he felt no different than how he'd felt before the radiation turned him into a grotesque version of himself. It really was strange, he thought, poking at the cuts along the corners of his mouth. That, well, that one had been painful, but thank God he'd been a fucking ghoul before he'd been caught out for stealing chemical secrets from Ascott Industries. He grimaced.

The torture lingered in the back of his mind, briefly. He looked at his hands and arms, then back to his face. Wasn't much left of him that looked human. Beyond the vague skeletal shape, he knew he was a terrible sight, all red muscle and tendons exposed, barely any skin.

A gentle song was playing behind him, some woman singing about love. It wouldn't be so bad, he thought. She liked him already, spent a lot of time playing around, teasing him. She had to know she was having that effect, even if he didn't show her he felt it. And it wasn't like she didn't know that ghouls were still people, she treated them the same as she treated smoothskins. Hell, it was the only reason she wasn't molested just walking down the streets of St. James. By all rights, something bad should have _already_ happened to her.

He picked up a bottle of hotwater and sniffed it, carefully. Good God, the stuff was foul. He knew how it was made, to the exact ingredients, and he was aware of the muscle relaxing effect it provided. Mona had made the concoction to help ghouls who were in so much pain from their decaying bodies, they couldn't operate a simple doorknob. He'd never had to use it, thank God. Ghouls like Medicine Man, who ran the Samson bar, practically lived on the stuff.

It smelled like fermented blueberries and piss. Didn't taste so bad once you got it over your tongue and down your throat, but the first swig was something like trying to breathe fire and swallow blood. He wished he didn't have to use this shit. It was reliable, though, and he was going to make sure he got what he wanted. He really _would_ do damn near anything to get that little girl with her tempting chocolate skin. Up to, and including, becoming a rapist.

Somehow, the thought didn't make him feel as disgusted as it ought to have. He felt blood rushing through his body, adrenaline surging. That was much better than the lonely drunkenness his nights usually held.

Alexy took an empty bottle and tipped a shot of hotwater into it, and filled the rest with whiskey. He capped it, stashed the hotwater behind the fridge, and pocketed the whiskey mix.

Tonight was going to be just... _perfect_.

He smiled to himself, the sliced flesh curving upwards with the motion, and opened the door to retrieve the object of his fervent desire.

* * *

Marcelo grunted, pulled up the stupid bitch who'd started the fight, and cracked her head off a table edge, unintentionally. It didn't bother him; sometimes it helped to be a little clumsy, when dealing with customers. He grinned, and felt her quaver in his grip, before dragging her to the door and pushing it open with his rebar club.

She landed face down in the litter of tin cans, needles, broken glass and crumbling asphalt just outside the door, crying and making all manner of pitiful noises. Marcelo pulled the door shut behind him and retreated into the smoky darkness of the Samson.

He liked being rough, being violent. Wasn't that he was a _bad_ guy. ...Who knew how you could tell in St. James? Every ghoul on the island was a rotten bastard in more than the physical sense. Marcelo just happened to be less rotten than most others, and enjoyed being a little pillar of morality among the thieves, murderers, and drug-dealers of the city, roughing them up in the capacity of his job.

He glanced up to Medicine Man, who was obscured behind a tangle of curling smoke, and leaned back against the wall. His eyes adjusted to the dim interior again, picking out the barrels in each corner providing little light. The room was almost as dark as a cellar and the air inside the room was humid. About ten ghouls sat at tables around the bar, some sitting with other ghouls, but still drinking alone.

Marcelo could feel the wetness in the air making his jagged skin soft around the edges, like he would slough into a pile of muscle, shit, and bone. Felt nasty, but that was just how it was. The place was outright grimy and utterly disgusting―just walking past the bar made you feel slimy, according to the inhabitants of St. James. Medicine Man liked it that way; made it easier to wheedle caps from desperate drunks when he knew what to expect from the filth that graced the doorstep.

Marcelo didn't care if the place was sparkling clean or full of Brahmin shit. He was just a bouncer. It was a job, and he liked it, so he did it, and he was content. Didn't hurt that he could be a monstrous fucking bastard, when he was beating down malcontents or kicking out customers he knew were going to be a problem.

He gripped the rebar club a little tighter when the door opened to admit new customers. Alexy and that fucking stupid smoothskin from across the lake. Marcelo's mouth went dry, even in the palpable moistness of the air. She was a sight for sore eyes, and he needed a little medicine, tonight. He watched her moving through the room, his eyes stuck to her skin like the wet air to his own. _Freak._

The two took a seat at the table farthest from the door and Marcelo kept his eyes moving across the room, scanning it for trouble. Her voice carried through the room like blood in water, drawing eyes. She laughed, she snorted, she made little breathy noises, she was drinking.

She was drinking? Marcelo squinted. That was new. Smoothskin freak from across the lake had never drank anything when she joined Alexy, before. He shook his tattered head at the stupidity. Why the girl had to hang out with a bunch of ugly ghouls in a dive bar like the Samson, he'd never know. Every few weeks she was back, with Alexy at her side. But she'd never drank before.

"How _dare_ you!" she said, after a while, talking just a little too loud.

A slap resounded in the smoky bar, turning a few heads. Most of the ghouls in the Samson knew better than to take obvious interest in whatever the smoothskin freak was doing. There were always a few who just couldn't help themselves but stare, and the smoothskin, well... She was definitely a freak. She had playfully slapped Alexy across the cheek and was laughing at him.

The ghoul bouncer rose up from the wall and ambled over to the girl and her companion, walking slow because he knew full well that their fight wasn't an actual fight. He was tired of hearing her untouched voice ringing out over the heads of more well-behaved drunkards, distracting him from his job.

"Shut it," he told her, staring down at her. Had drunk a good deal already, he knew. Two spots of black in that pretty brown face stared at him like stars, catching what little light there was. Marcelo's eyes lingered on her face, seeing the shininess, and he smelled something sickly.

 _Fuck_ , that bastard had dosed her with hotwater, and Marcelo couldn't do a damn thing for the stupid girl. It wasn't his business unless he or she made something of it, and even then he could only kick them out to the street. He didn't look away, kept his eyes on hers. She was so fucking _stupid_.

"Sorry, Marcelo," she muttered, and looked down. He tapped the rebar club on the metal floor of the bar, making a clanging noise, and turned his head to stare down her drinking partner.

"Alexy," he said. He hoped the asshole would try something obvious, so he could smash him good. Whatever this shit was, that he was doing, it was a new low for the asshole.

"Marcelo," was all the red-faced ghoul said back. He wore a perpetual grin, that one. Marcelo wanted to hit him, _real_ hard.

"I'll be good," the girl said. "I promise, Marcelo."

The bouncer nodded, and backed away from the table. As soon as his back was turned, both of them let out a relieved and hysterical laugh, but less loudly. He shot a glance at Medicine Man, smoking a pipe in the corner. The ancient ghoul had his milky eyes on the smoothskin, as usual, though what he could actually see was up for debate. His eyes were atrophied, nearly falling out of his head.

Marcelo resumed his stance at the wall, the club dipping to the floor but not touching it. He saw the smoothskin lay her hand on Alexy's and laugh an arousing little laugh. He shook his head at that. _Little girl ought to know better than to tempt any man._ That was why she was in the mess she was in, right now. She was playing with fire, and it was dumb to keep coming back even after Medicine Man warned her off from the bar. She needed to go home, get the hell out of St. James, and pretend to be a normal smoothskin for a while.

Marcelo grunted to himself. After tonight, she wouldn't come back. That was good. Maybe she'd learn a fucking lesson, too, about bastards like her so-called "friend", Alexy.

Alexy, the bastard, beamed his weird grin at the girl and his tongue flopped around in his mouth. Why the girl liked him enough to hang around him, Marcelo didn't know. He was creepy beyond all reason; it was pretty clear he wanted the girl, and he wanted her bad. Marcelo moved the club down to his hands and eyeballed the short ghoul. Alexy knew he was looking at him.

Marcelo shifted his eyes when he heard the door creak open, and tensed up. A slow grin rolled across the ripped skin of his face. He was going to get a fight, after all.


	3. Tony and Joey

16 SEPTEMBER 2176

NIGHT

* * *

Joey was drunk. She knew she was drunk. It was like her head was made of circles and she couldn't get them to stop revolving around each other in a solar system of dizziness. It wasn't all that _bad_ , really, she felt relaxed and a little bit sleepy. She knew why Alexy liked to come to the bar, now. And she was glad she'd accepted his invitation to drink, even if she knew he was hoping she'd get so drunk that she'd sleep with him. She wouldn't, of course. But he could entertain the thought, if he wanted. Joey wasn't a stranger to his advances.

She grinned. She'd never been drunk before. It was a new and weird experience, and she kind of liked it, because it was exciting. Part of her hated the sick feeling that she had to push down every time she moved, but she felt good all over and that was worth it.

Her hand on his felt incredibly warm. She ran her fingers over the torn edge of his skin, saw the heartbeat in his muscles quickening. There was a piece of cloth wrapped around his index finger, and she rubbed it without feeling it.

Alexy was really quite nice to be around, even when he was trying to get into her pants. Joey liked his funny way of talking and the way his light-colored eyes lit up when he was excited, which seemed to be every other minute. Alexy was full of energy, and it was intoxicating in its own right.

"Having fun?" he was asking her.

She nodded her head and felt the circles jangling inside her head. Maybe she shouldn't have had that whiskey, after all. She felt like she was going to fall over just sitting there. All of a sudden, she gripped the table and pitched backwards, her head spinning.

"You okay?" Alexy asked her. His cut-open cheeks quivered with the movement of his mouth and she stared at it, distractedly. He smiled. She liked it.

" _No,_ " she laughed, and pulled herself forward. Her head hit the table and she laid there for a moment, feeling the world just turn and turn and turn... Alexy ran a hand along the back of her neck and turned her head to the side, chuckling. She felt very sleepy.

All of a sudden, he made a strangled noise and got up out of his chair in a hurry. _Shit_ , Joey thought. A hand came down on her shoulder, heavily. Not a ghoul hand. She knew that hand. She looked at the arm it was attached to, and followed the arm up to a shoulder, then a blurry face.

"Tony," she slurred. "How's it going?"

"Josephine." His hand squeezed her shoulder, hard. "Are you... drunk?" There was no feeling in the words.

"Pretty sure!" she said, laughing weakly.

"Who gave you the alcohol?" The mercenary was looking around the bar. Marcelo was making his way, slowly, to the table. _Shit_!

Alexy was trying to leave the bar. Joey sat up and the world spun so fast around her she thought she might be shaken apart, but Tony steadied her and repeated his question. She shrugged. "I bought it," she said, mulishly. "I _bought_ it, and I drank it."

"I highly doubt that you had enough caps," Tony said. "You're so drunk, you're about to pass out." He was staring at her, now. His voice was so irritating. How could he always be so calm, so neutral to every situation?

"Go ask Alexy!" she said, and flung her arm out to the ghoul, who gave up trying to slink away and flat out scuttled toward the door. "He's drinking with me."

Tony didn't stop staring at her. In a move that she didn't even register until it had happened, he drew his pistol and shot at the ghoul across the room. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and hit Alexy in the knee. " _Fuck!_ " the ghoul yelled, and went down. Tony's sharp blue eyes never left her face.

"Tony!" Joey tried to stand up, but he held her down by her shoulder, and his arm pivoted to aim the pistol at Marcelo. Finally, he looked away from her and stared down the enormous ghoul bouncer. The room was entirely quiet, now.

"We're leaving," he told the ghoul. Marcelo lowered his club to his hand and gripped it tighter. Joey's eyes widened. _Shit!_

She felt a lot more sober now, and she could almost see in slow motion the swing of the rebar toward Tony. She pitched sideways, under the table, out of Tony's grasp. Tony ducked forward, narrowly missing the rebar club, and put his pistol under Marcelo's chin, drawing back the hammer. "I said, we're leaving."

Marcelo blinked once and stared down at the man, then lowered his club to the floor. It rattled the metal and Joey could feel the vibrations. She threw up a little, and looked over at Alexy.

He was holding his knee, trying to stand up with one hand on a table. She could hear the low tones across the room. He was cursing. Joey looked up at Tony. He did not move.

A noisy breath on the other side of the room drew their attention. " _Stupid_..." Medicine Man was looking at them through a haze of smoke rising from his pipe. He sat in an armchair, an enormous bulky blanket over his lap, and his eyes were on Joey. She felt the blood rise to her face, and looked away in embarrassment.

"I don't want to shoot your man," Tony said. "Order him down." His voice was hard now, deadly serious.

"Yes..." Medicine Man waved a hand slowly. "Go, Mar...celo. Smoothskin... don't come... back."

Marcelo removed himself from the fray and Tony grabbed Joey by her arm, hauling her upward without much care to her drunken state. She gagged with the nauseating movement, and tried to jerk out of his grasp. Alexy started to fumble with his gun, but Tony strode over the floor to him and kicked it out of his hands.

"You listen good to what I say," Tony told the ghoul, holding his pistol level with his mouth. "If I catch you anywhere near Josephine again, I will make your smile a whole lot wider."

"Tony!" Joey protested. "That's _unfair!_ "

Alexy, who was very good at adapting to situations, grinned. "Sure thing, buddy," he rasped. "You promise?"

Tony wasn't as easy-going as Alexy, and he was angry. Joey cringed because she knew what was coming. He flipped his pistol around and cracked it across the top of Alexy's skull, knocking the ghoul down and out. Joey started to cry.

It was all going so _well_ , too. Tony shot her a look that she knew meant to shut up and behave, and dragged her out of the bar.

* * *

"You are such an _asshole_!" Josephine was yelling, as they walked along the road leading out of St. James. "Why did you have to _shoot_ Alexy?!"

Normally, Tony would have reacted to her anger with more anger, but he was beyond that point. He was not angry―he was _scared_ , and it was not an emotion that he had traditionally dealt with very well. He kept his hand on her arm and pulled, trying very hard not to think about all the bad stuff that could have, would have, happened, if he hadn't been able to find her so quickly. The thought of rape crossed his mind and he faltered in his stride.

 _No. Mustn't think about that._ It could have happened, but wouldn't. She was safe. Tony was going to deliver her home, and try not to be too assertive about explaining to her why she couldn't go get drunk in sleazy bars with even sleazier ghouls.

And maybe, if she was lucky, he felt that she understood, once he got her home he wouldn't tell her mother what she'd been doing at the bar. He shot her a frustrated look and she glared at him with her enormous near-black eyes, and his chest hurt.

 _Mustn't think about that, either._

He pulled her until they reached the barge, and ascertained the direction of travel. This barge was traveling the wrong way; it would take them to Gladstone. He didn't want to have to drag Josephine all the way up there and then back down to Stockton, but it was going to have to be that way. Neither one of the two needed to stay on the island any longer.

Before they boarded, she pulled her arm away from him with a surprising amount of strength. " _Fugg_ ," she muttered. "Lemme go." She threw up onto the pier.

Tony was extremely annoyed that she'd been drinking; it wasn't something she'd done before, to his knowledge. "Is this a habit of yours?" he asked her, crossing his arms and staring critically at the teenager. "You are aware that he wanted to have sex with you, right?"

"Shu'up," she slurred. "I'mma big girrr... _Hnngg!_ "

"You are not, and I quote, 'a big girl'. You are a fifteen-year-old girl with no idea how _stupid_ men can be toward women." Tony stared her down, mercilessly. "And if I hadn't shown up when I did, you'd be a lot worse off tonight than just throwing up."

Josephine garbled something at him that he knew was intended to be an insult, and he ignored it. He stared at her, taking in her appearance. Josephine Calhoun was athletic, had strong legs, with skin the rich brown color of his leathers. Her black hair was cut short on her head, and she looked a lot like her mother, which was not unfortunate. She was wearing a grimy green dress, and Tony found he couldn't stare too long or else he wouldn't be able to think straight. That made him feel guilty, because that was how jackasses like Alexy Ilyin thought, and he was better than that.

"You're an asshole," she managed to spit out, in-between the vomiting.

Really, he'd been stupid to let her go back to Stockton the last time. Josephine couldn't stay away from St. James, for whatever reason. She always managed to scrape together enough caps to get over the water to the island and would inevitably spend the next few days with Dr. Donald at the research facility on the top of the hill, before Tony, his father, or God _forbid_ , Celia Landis herself, came to retrieve her.

Dr. Donald was a respectable sort of drug producer, the kind that tried to help and actually did, but her employees were a different sort altogether. Ilyin was one of those employees, and Tony really wished that this was the last time he'd ever have to meet the obnoxious jerk. It wouldn't be, though. He sighed.

"Do you really think―" he started, and she lunged at him, her fist aiming for his face. He ducked back, and she fell forward. Tony caught her easily, pulled her back upright. Her face was shiny with sweat and and her eyes rolled in her head.

"Oh, _hell_ ," he said, and she threw up again, down his leather armor. "Josephine! Stay awake!"

She went limp, and he laid her carefully onto the pier before pulling his pack off his shoulder and rummaging through it. He wiped her clean of vomit, and went to the edge of the water about ten feet away to clean himself off. When he turned back, she was gone.

And Tony muttered a curse that he shouldn't have, and he felt guilty for that, too.

* * *

He'd managed to make it around the shacks that made a tight square in his corner of the city, and could see his house from the alleyway he was hiding in. _That bitch,_ Foster thought, and felt his side. He wasn't bleeding as badly, but it needed treated. Right now, he just wanted to make it to his house, lock the door, and hide.

There was a brown and green lump on the ground near his doorway. He squinted at it, unable to tell from the distance just what it was. Or who, maybe. His eyes widened. Damn, it was that smoothskin that Mr. Strange was always on about.

He glanced around, then loped forward and unlocked his door, shutting it quickly behind him. His heart pounded in his chest, and he sighed. After he caught his breath, he reached outside and grabbed the girl, dragging her inside the dilapidated shack, and locked the door behind them.

What the hell she was doing, passed out in the streets of St. James, he had no idea. He wasn't about to leave her for Norma to find, though, or any of the myriad of cocksuckers that lived up and down the lane. Maybe she'd thank him, maybe she'd stab him like Norma, but he'd done the right thing and he was fine with that.

Foster moved her to the couch and put her legs up, then ran a hand along his patchy hair and retreated to the kitchen area. Cooking smells invaded the one-room shack and he grumbled to himself as his thumb stung from the awkward movement of holding a pan. He ate, and stared at the girl over his plate, wondering why she was passed out. She smelled like piss and blueberries, and whiskey, too.

He finished his food, put away the dishes, and listened to the radio, the soft sounds lulling him toward a gentle sleep. He jerked upright. No way in hell he was gonna chance laying down in bed, not with some crazy smoothskin freak passed out on his couch. He tried to stay awake, and examined his hands again, prying back the bandage on the injured one. He smiled to himself. They were nice, and he should take care of them.

A commotion rose outside, and he could hear Norma's screeching voice calling out insults against some other ghoul. Protests were made, squishing sounds came through the walls of the shack. Foster squinted at the door and heard a couple of thumps against the metal, then merciful silence for what seemed like an eternity.

 _Finally!_ She must have come down from the crap that made jammer last so long compared to jet. Foster sighed in relief, and sat back in the chair, forearms resting on the table. He'd tried jet once. _Once_. The experience was enough to put him off any kind of any drug.

His stomach settled, and the sick feeling he'd had since Norma attacked him slowly ebbed away. _Now_ , he thought, _all that I have to do is hope that she goes into a coma or dies._ He laughed a little, and it sounded weird in the shack. With his luck, she'd be as chipper as a chipmunk tomorrow, and would have completely forgotten her attempt to kill him.

The smoothskin wasn't moving. Must have been dead drunk, to pass out like she did. Why was she alone, though? He frowned. She usually stuck to Dr. Donald like a leech, or that weird gap-mouthed assistant of hers.

He put his feet up on the other chair, leaned back, and plucked a magazine off the shelf near him. _Well, whatever._ He wasn't that concerned. Whenever she woke up, he would put her out and give her directions to Dr. Donald's lab, or the barge landing, or wherever she might want to go.

He curled his fingers around the paper and reveled in the feeling, the dryness, the soft rustle the magazine made. _Yeah,_ he thought. His mind hazed over again, and he went still in the coolness of the night.


	4. You Want To Play?

17 SEPTEMBER 2176

MORNING

* * *

When she woke up, she immediately tasted something so foul it was worse than Alexy's breath after he'd eaten bloatfly sliders. She dry heaved and felt herself lying on a couch, could just make out the blurry outline of the cushions. Her head was aching, but not so painful that she couldn't handle it. She was sore all over, though, and her knees had dried blood on them.

 _What the hell?_ she thought, trying to push herself up to a sitting position. Her vision was still blurry, and she shook her head, sending a wave of pain down her spine and around her temples. She turned to see where she was, and almost jumped out of her skin.

Some metal shack, and sitting at the table in the corner near a kitchenette was a ghoul she couldn't recognize through her bleary sight. He was leaning back in the chair, a magazine laid over his face, his breath ruffling the pages lightly. The radio played a gentle tune through the room, and she could just make out the bloody red light of sunrise coming through the holes in the walls.

She checked herself, but nothing seemed out of place or was missing. She still had a handful of caps in her pocket, even. _That is amazing,_ she thought. _He must have left me be. Damn, I'm lucky._

" _Goooooood morning St. James!_ How are we, today? Are you longing for the _sweet_ release of death, the _inevitable_ end of all that exists?" Mr. Strange's voice rang out evenly through the metal, and she shot a glance at the radio in the kitchenette with an eyebrow up. "I have to tell you that I am _not_ , and I have a young man here who is threatening me with a gun unless I let him talk. Give a loud cheer for _Tony_ , ladies and gents."

Joey bolted upright and moved across the shack to the radio, to turn it off. Before her fingers turned the knob, she heard Tony's voice begin to fill the room. "Josephine, please don't make me come looking for you," he said, and she squeezed her eyes shut, turning off the radio. Shit, now she couldn't go running back to Mona. She needed to lay low.

Behind her, the ghoul roused, and sat up, the magazine fluttering to the ground. He grunted, leaned forward in his chair, picking up the magazine. As he lifted himself back up, she noticed his hands were almost completely whole, and it looked strange, seeing hands like that attached to a ghoul body. He froze, and stared at her legs, then swept milky eyes up her body to her face.

She smiled, sheepishly, and looked up at the ceiling as the ghoul placed the magazine on the table and cleared his throat. "Sorry," she muttered, and put her hands behind her back, to hide her trembling.

He grunted again, and pushed himself out of the chair. "Move," he said, motioning her away. She moved to the other side of the table and he rummaged in the fridge that she'd been standing in front of.

"I'm Joey," she said, quietly, almost too quietly.

He glanced up at her over the fridge door, then pulled out a bottle of water and a Nuka-Blu. He handed her the water, and she took it, gingerly. "Foster," he said. "Go on." He motioned at the table. "Sit. Drink some water, then go."

She sat and felt the blood rising ever higher in her face. "How―" she started to ask.

"You passed out on the street," he said, easing himself back into the chair. "I brought you inside. Shouldn't do that, you know." He uncapped the soda and drank it, slowly, and winced. One of his weird hands dipped down to the side of his jumpsuit.

 _He's injured?_ Joey felt her face about to catch fire. Had he... saved her, somehow? She remembered a little bit, the bar and running away from Tony, but not much after that. It was all a blur like her vision, but that was returning to normal.

"I'm sorry," she said, again. "I... didn't mean to cause trouble."

Foster grunted, and took a long drink. His hand clamped down on the wound, and Joey saw fresh blood ooze around his fingers, covering over the dried blood. She felt like she ought to pay him back for saving her from the nightlife of St. James. She knew all too well how awful some of the ghouls around here could be, and to make it through the night on someone's couch without being messed with was a damn miracle.

"Can I help you?" she asked, suddenly. "With that?"

He sputtered and Nuka-Blu came out of his nasal cavity. She watched, horrified by the scene. After a few minutes of coughing, he wiped his face on his shirt and shot her an indecipherable look. "No," he said, firmly. "Get out, smoothskin."

"I just―"

"Get the hell out!" he said, not raising his voice, and winced again.

Joey set her mouth into a thin line. "You're rude!" she said, and stood up. Her hands trembled again. "I only asked if I could help! You took _me_ in and helped _me!_ "

Foster stared at her like she was growing a third arm, flabbergasted. His mouth opened to say something, then closed. He looked away and made a rumbling noise in his throat.

"If you let me help you, I will leave, and you won't ever have to see my face again!" she said, her voice wobbling in her throat. _Probably because Tony will kill me, and if he doesn't, Mama will for sure._ She swallowed thickly.

He exhaled angrily and said, "Fine," glancing back at her with angry eyes. "But then you get out."

Joey nodded, and looked at the wound through the jumpsuit. "You'll... have to take off your top," she said, awkwardly. "Do you have a first aid kit?"

He gestured with the Nuka-Blu in his hand, at the counter in the kitchenette. Joey moved and retrieved it, laying it on the table. Foster slid his arm out of his sleeve with a pained noise, and poked at his side with those fingers that still had flesh on. She watched his hand, mesmerized.

When he glanced up at her again, she looked away and cleared her throat. "Okay, so, uh... Hold still."

Which, of course, didn't happen. The stab was just under and into the ribs, and had gone through some actual skin on his side. The minute she started to clean the wound with a little bit of irradiated water, he jerked away and she sighed. "C'mon, Foster," she said.

He mumbled something she didn't catch and clenched his fingers around the soda bottle. Joey poked him in the side, in the skin a little higher up on his ribs. He jerked again. She fought the urge to laugh.

"Sorry," she said, brightly. "Still ticklish, huh."

"Yes," he hissed, and she rolled her eyes.

"I'm not trying to tickle you, man." She splashed the gauze with water and held it to the wound, pressing firmly. He made a low rumbling sound, and she examined his upper body.

Unlike Alexy, Foster was a greenish tint, with a good deal of skin left. Joey knew what Alexy looked like from the waist up, he'd taken her swimming in the one non-irradiated pool on the island, a couple of times. Alexy's upper body looked like someone had taken chunks of flesh out of him, all over, with no visible skin whatsoever. Foster was mostly intact, and she ran her eyes along the one visible stretch of muscle that ran from his wrist and up his arm. It wrapped around both pectoral muscles and stopped just shy of his bellybutton.

For some reason, the thought of a ghoul with a bellybutton made her laugh, and he glared at her. "Hurry the hell up," he growled. His arm wavered, stuck out over her head as she knelt on the floor under it.

She scoffed to herself, and put more water on the gauze. "You're the one with the radiation healing thing," she muttered, and pressed the gauze to his side again. The wound definitely looked smaller. She covered her mouth with her other hand and coughed into it, jerking slightly.

He stiffened, and she swallowed hard again. "Okay," she said, and removed the gauze slowly. "Okay, you're done."

He redressed so quickly she barely caught it, and adjusted his jumpsuit around his collarbone. "Thank you," he said, roughly. _Reluctantly_. Joey fought another laugh. "Now, get out." He pointed at the door.

Joey's eyes lingered on his fingers, for a moment. Her face felt hot with embarrassment. _Better just leave. Maybe I'll get lucky and Mona won't turn me in._ She bit her lip, thinking hard.

"Seriously," he said, his face contorting into a weird expression. "Get out. Please."

At least he asked nicely, that time. "See you around, Foster," she said, and slammed the door behind her, striding out under the red rays of St. James' sunrise.

* * *

Alexy woke face down in a pile of shit, laid out in a Brahmin pen somewhere near the Samson. He spat and gagged, wiping his face and some of it was still in his mouth. His head felt like someone had literally split his skull down the middle, and his leg was swollen and even redder than his normal muscle tone. He spat again, and swore up and down.

A passing ghoul shot him a look. "Do you not have something better to stare at, asshole?" he snarled, and pulled himself out of the pile of shit. The other looked offended, walked off quickly.

He muttered to himself in Russian he trudged home. Back in the day, he would have been entirely stupid to betray his personal affiliation to Mother Russia. Back in the day, he was a respected chemical analyst for Ascott Industries. He was Dr. Alex Illman, a handsome young asshole with ambition and a plan to rip the rug right out from under John Ascott's feet. But this wasn't back in the day.

To say he was a little disappointed in the night's events was an understatement. The only thing that had saved his life was the fact that Tony Sellers had shown up too early for him to enact his master plan. He scoffed. The dumb bastard. How did even get to the island so fast? Alexy figured he'd have at least two days of unrepentant fucking, pleading sick to Dr. Donald, and cloistering himself in the dingy Pre-War tumbledown that he called home, before being shot at.

He smiled at the thought, unashamedly. _She would have loved it, too._ His mouth twitched. After the "initiation", anyway. He slammed open the door and dragged himself inside, looking for his doctor's bag.

* * *

Marcelo was still awake, when the sun rose. Alexy had been hauled out onto the street and dumped into the Brahmin pen. _Only fitting that the shithead woke with shit in his head,_ the bouncer thought, and chuckled to himself. He'd cleaned up what Alexy had bled onto the floor and resumed his position along the wall.

Medicine Man noted the sun rising through the holes in the corrugated metal walls, before anyone else. His sharp intake of breath told Marcelo that it was time to vacate the bar and lock up.

After the drunks had been dislodged from their chairs, Marcelo took Medicine Man to the tiny shack behind the bar and deposited him comfortably on the bed. He nodded to the day guard, who was paid well to watch out for the decrepit ghoul, and carried his rebar club over his shoulder down to the waterfront.

The area was quiet now. Red sky, and no sounds at all in the dawn of the day. Most of the ghouls in St. James slept during the day anyway. There was less light to see how fucked everyone was, in the night time. Marcelo slept in the daytime because his job required it.

His home was little more than three walls and a roof, but he didn't mind. It didn't storm like it used to, not since the black rains fell. What rain did come wasn't enough to make a difference between the humid air inside the Samson and itself, on the wasteland floor. Marcelo didn't understand enough about weather patterns, even before becoming a ghoul, to make sense of what the weather meant. The only thing he noticed, anymore, was that the sky was always red over St. James in the morning, and that when it was going to rain, it was black.

And he noticed the freak sitting in his house. He growled at this. She was sitting with her legs out in front of her, hands clenched in her lap, staring out over the water. Her dress was stained with sick and her knees were bloody, and her hair a fucking mess.

Marcelo still stared. Smoothskin was smoothskin, even if they were beat to hell, he reasoned. But he remembered she'd been the cause of him losing face against that fucking smoothy merc, and he didn't like that. No one, absolutely _no one,_ bested Marcelo, even when he was distracted by a pretty girl. His mood plummeted even more than before.

He walked up to the lean-to, and she didn't notice him. He grinned at that, and his spirits rose. She really was stupid, how the hell had she managed to make it to her age? Marcelo drew a deep breath and roared at her.

He dropped the rebar club to the ground and shook with unsaid laughter when she jumped right out of her pretty skin. That made him feel a _lot_ fucking better! " _Marcelo_ ," she gasped, and backed up a few feet, nervously. "I―I'm―"

"My home," he growled at her, dropping into his bouncer persona. His eyes moved to the shack she was sitting in, and back to her, hard on her face.

"Uh―" she glanced it and her eyes dropped. "I thought you lived behind the Samson," she said, lamely.

He made a vaguely threatening noise. "Bed time," he said. " _Get._ "

And she stood there, stupidly. Like he was gonna let her stick around while he slept? Or did she think she was such hot fucking stuff that he would act like a _puppy_ around her? He snorted. She looked up and then out at the lake.

"Could I―" she said, and wiped her eyes.

He saw she'd been crying. Well, no _shit_ , any girl would, having that shit last night happen to her. How the fuck she managed to get away from the merc, he didn't know. Last time Marcelo had seen a smoothskin cry... he grunted and put the rebar club inside the lean-to. He'd been the cause of it. It was not something he enjoyed thinking about.

"Could I watch out for you?" she asked, even more lamely. Her voice was thin and wobbling.

" _Nobody_ fucks with Marcelo," he said pointedly, squinting at her, and flopped down onto the shitty cardboard mat that was his bed. He laid his arms across his knees and stared out over the water, blinking. The sun was red hot now, and right in his eyes. Not for the first time in his life on the island, he wondered why he'd chosen to take residence on the east shore.

 _Fucking stupid little smoothskin._ She moved closer to him and he growled again. "I need to lay low," she said, sniffling a little. "I won't be a bother."

"Fuck _off,_ smoothy," he snapped, without looking at her. Whatever the fuck she'd done to herself, it was her own problem. None of his business. Not his circus, or his monkeys.

Dammit all to hell―she started fucking _crying!_ Marcelo looked up to the roof of the shack, closed his eyes and ground his teeth. The sound grating on his ears, he wished he could jam his rebar club right into his ear drums. A tooth cracked in his jaw and he stood abruptly, striding to the girl.

She gasped and stopped her bawling when he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, roughly. Her voice caught in her throat and she coughed, violently, and he let her go. She stumbled backwards, coughing, and landed on her ass in the sand. Marcelo made a low noise, shook his head, and went back to the bed.

She coughed for a long time. _That fucking hotwater,_ he thought. Probably scrambled the bitch in the head. Marcelo sat and waited for the sun to be high enough that he could sleep without the rays in his eyes. Eventually, she calmed herself, and laid back onto the sand.

"I'm gonna fucking _die,_ " she said, quietly.

Marcelo laughed, a cruel one.

She turned herself so she could see him, and frowned. "That's not funny," she said.

He looked at her, saw her skirt hiked up over her thighs, her knees in the air and arms straight out on the ground. A rogue thought entered his brain and he ignored it. "You _will_ ," he grumbled, "you keep acting like a stupid little bitch."

She growled at him, this time. She got up from the ground, stomped over to him, and smacked him hard across the face. He was relaxed, and his head turned with the action.

Marcelo turned his head back to the smoothskin freak, slowly. That was how she wanted to play?

Then Marcelo would fucking _play._


	5. Let's F―ing Play

17 SEPTEMBER 2176

AFTERNOON

* * *

Mona did the morning and afternoon routine, fear running through her mind. Ilyin had come to work late, with his head smashed in, and his leg torn up. He'd explained that Tony had come to get Joey, and beaten him for no good reason. She knew her employee, and rolled her eyes at his over-the-top display. She would deal with Ilyin, later, for his inappropriate behavior.

Mona had awakened that morning to hear Tony calling for Joey on the radio, and it was obvious to everyone that he had not made it off the island with her. That meant her Joey was somewhere in the city or in the wastes surrounding it, _alone_ , and the very thought terrified her. She broke slides, dropped test tubes, and ruined an entire batch of jammer. Her nerves were on edge, and Sorola and Ilyin encouraged her to take a break and let them deal with the work.

But she couldn't do that, not with Pinch Protocol being enacted. She couldn't even go to feed her babies until the facility was locked up tight for the night; someone had stolen drugs, and that was something she simply would not tolerate. She eyed the two ghoul men with her hardest expression and walked around them, her face twitching nervously.

1200, she ordered them out of the facility for the day and ate instamash, pretended it was cheese manicotti.

1300, she cleaned up what had been left behind.

1500, she went downstairs and fed the pretties and the babies, and checked in on the ferals.

1547, she noticed her female smoothskin going through the change was missing. The catheter and tubing and medicine bag were torn apart inside the cage, the door swinging on one hinges, the entire front busted. A smear of blood led away from the cage for about ten feet, then turned into bloody footprints that were much too large for the woman's feet.

1548, Mona did what she had not had to do in over seventy years, and pulled the facility alarm.

* * *

Joey choked back fear as Marcelo grabbed her, and she cried, tears streaming down her face. He wrapped his enormous hands around her shoulders again, and shook the shit out of her, making her head snap back and forth. She was dizzy again, and she felt her stomach heave, but there was nothing in it to throw up.

And then he stopped, and eyed her intensely, just standing there. He held her tightly, about a foot off the ground.

Joey wasn't stupid. She understood what she had done was likely to get her killed. Really, she'd kind of hoped the stupid bouncer would hit her with his club and kill her quickly. She was dead, _anyway!_ Her mother was going to pitch a fucking fit when she found out Joey had been drinking, and with Alexy, who no one seemed to like except Joey. And all that, whatever, about _sex_ , who the fuck _cared?_ For Joey, not being able to do what she wanted, to get away from the everlasting boredom of Stockton and travel, away from her mother's weirdness and chemical dependence―and her memories of J.L. and her dad―she sobbed. She felt like she would die, to have to go back home.

How did things get _so_ fucked up in such a short time? It was good to release the emotions, though. She hung limply in the ghoul's hands, relieved.

He was enormous, and scary, she thought. Marcelo was almost purple in his muscles, with skin that hung onto him like it was afraid to let go. Patches here and there, with black markings, graced what she could see of his bare flesh; near-black veins stuck out every time he flexed his muscles, which was damn near all the time. He didn't have bad eyes, though; he stared at her with thin cataracts over what she was sure must be brown eyes. One large clump of black hair hung to the right over his eye, and the rest of his scalp was peeling away or missing entirely.

Marcelo made a threatening noise, almost as if he was daring her. Joey managed a weak noise, and he shook her again, just as hard. She heaved again.

That went on for about ten minutes, and her shoulders were shivering from the pressure he put on them by the time he got bored and dropped her to the ground. She rolled onto her side and spat out stomach acid, and felt weak as hell.

Marcelo was behind her, grumbling to himself, and she heard him thump the shack floor loudly. Joey smiled weakly, and murmured, " _I_ win!"

She felt rough fingers on her ankle, and every last bit of adrenaline she possessed surged through her as she scrambled to get away. He dragged her, powerfully, back toward the shack. She kicked him with her other foot, felt the heel of her pump lodge in his thigh, and drew back a bare foot. That made her laugh hysterically. _Ghouls! Fucking hell!_

Marcelo kept pulling her until her head was on the shack floor, and then he was hovering over her with a knee on her stomach and his hands going for her neck. Joey spat at him, angrily, and swung weakly out at him, barely impacting.

He grabbed her hands, together into one of his, and pressed them above her head. Joey laughed, headily. "Fuck _you,_ man," she said.

Marcelo grunted at her, and smacked her across the face, hard. "Turnabout is fair play," he growled, and his face got so close she could smell his breath. He smelled like cigarettes and Nuka-Blu. She closed her eyes, squeezing out the last tears she was sure she would ever cry.

* * *

Marcelo stopped himself from hurting the stupid girl any more than he had to, but she kept fucking _baiting_ him, and he was furious. He was tired, too, real tired. Didn't get enough damn sleep as it was, and on that fucking mat it was the same as sleeping on the metal sheet underneath. Last night had been very eventful, he needed the alone time to sort through his head and keep himself sane.

And she _kept fucking fighting him!_ Fighting and fucking _crying_ , and he felt like he was about to explode. He didn't want to kill her, but she wasn't giving him much option.

If he did kill her, he thought, leaning over her, her hands over her head and his knee pressing hard into her stomach, then that smoothskin merc fuck would probably kill _him._ He growled at the girl, watched her shudder. He didn't like that idea, at all. Dumb bastard had gotten the fucking best of him! He wasn't going to give him the goddamn _honor_ of killing the toughest fucking bastard in St. James.

But he couldn't let this insane bitch go, and spread the word around that Marcelo beat her her half to death and wouldn't finish the job. He saw her eyes open a slit, staring up at him. Little black circles, with a bright spot that caught the sun. Yeah, and she'd _do_ it too, just to bait him again and make him try to finish the fucking job.

 _Well, fuck!_ He didn't know what to do. If he beat her unconscious, maybe he could put her on the shore and wait for high tide, or something. But she would already have bruises on her shoulders and ankle, and on her stomach from his knee. He removed it, slowly, baring his teeth at her, but kept his legs in between hers. He knew better than to give her a shot at his wedding tackle. She breathed fast and noisily.

Maybe he should just scare the shit out of her, _real_ good. He knew how to do _that._

"You want to play?" he breathed in her face. "Marcelo fucking plays _hard_." He moved a knee and ground it into her crotch.

She jerked and whimpered in pain. "Just kill me, already," she begged.

He let her go, surprised, and backed down. _Damn fucking stupid smoothskin bitch freak!_

She coughed and lay trembling on the shack floor. Marcelo planted his ass on the mat, and stared at her. No, he wouldn't. He would _not_ kill someone who was asking for it. That was not who Marcelo was.

"Fucking bitch," he muttered. The anger drained away, replaced by a need for sleep and peace.

She croaked a laugh. "Oh, come on," she said, weakly. "Not even big, bad Marcelo will kill me?"

He kicked her legs, half-heartedly, and laid down on the mat. He was too tired to deal with her shit. "Come back later," he grunted, and closed his eyes.

It felt like minutes later, he heard an alarm blaring above the city, obnoxiously cutting into his sleep.

* * *

The alarm startled Foster so badly, he dropped a spanner and smacked his head in the exact same spot as the day before. Swearing, he pulled himself out from under the engine again, and rubbed his forehead with the back of one hand, staring out the garage door.

His nerves were already on edge from the smoothskin, touching him and poking him like she had. It was annoying as piss to him, and made him feel hideous. He didn't like that feeling. He was the best-kept ghoul on the island, and he shouldn't be feeling like a beast compared to her. But she'd made him nervous, demanding he let her help him, and he'd caved. Now he wanted his old self back. The cocksure self that knew he had the prettiest hands in St. James.

He stared at the sky, wondering what the alarm was for. In the back of his mind he felt her fingers on his side again, and swatted the memory away. To hell with that, what the hell was _that?_

Norma walked by, and glanced in on Foster. "What the _fuck_ is this _shit?_ " she asked, gesturing up at the facility on the hill.

He squinted up at the squat gray building, settled into a hill and surrounded by dead trees. He shrugged. "Don't know." A vague memory caught him up. "Maybe we should assemble somewhere."

Norma shot him a glare. She still had blood all over her, but she looked normal again. There was a cut on her head from his having to crack her skull with that piece of asphalt, and he wondered if she really had killed Ralph.

"If we're supposed to assemble," he said, wiping his hands carefully and ignoring her jealous stares, "then we would do it where the town hall would be. 'Cept we haven't got one."

"Probably go to the facility, then," Norma said, almost hissing. Her voice was edgy. "Dr. Donald is practically the mayor."

Foster nodded. "Makes sense," he said. "Go round up some others and we'll all head up and see."

He turned and put away his spanner, wiping his hands as neatly as possible, and pulled the garage door down, then walked up the hill leading toward the facility.

* * *

Tony registered the alarm at the same time Mr. Strange's telegraph machine started clattering. Mr. Strange stopped in the middle of a word, stared at the little machine, and waited. After a minute, he raised the skin above his eyes and opened them wide.

" _Ladies and gents, important news!_ " he called into the microphone. Tony reapplied the gun to the deejay's head and cleared his throat. He'd been sitting in the radio station since early morning, issuing various challenges to Josephine through the radio, because he didn't know where she would have gone. And he knew she wasn't dumb enough to run back to Dr. Donald. He had not been able to find her, and it was frustrating.

Mr. Strange, who lived up to his name with a crazy curlique tattoo pattern over what skin he had left, stared the man down. He placed a hand over the microphone and hissed at Tony. "Look, man, dis is public emergency, an' I gats t'do it." He turned and put his radio voice on. "I regret to inform you that the siren you are hearing means there's been an _incident_ at the facility. Dr. Donald just sent me a message to let you all know you should head home, lock yourself tightly into your homes, and _do not budge_ until the alarm goes quiet. I repeat..."

"What kind of emergency?" Tony asked, his thumb on the hammer of the pistol.

Mr. Strange looked at him with an exasperated look. "I _repeat_... go home, ladies and gents, get into your houses and barricade the doors. _Do not come out_ until you can't hear alarms, no matter what." He touched a button and switched the radio over to the broadcast signal for emergency, then turned to the to man.

"You can' be messin' wi my broadcasts an'more," he said, speaking fluidly with the strange accent. He frowned. "Emergency, man, tha's all. Gwan, fin' somewah t'hide."

Tony clenched his hand on the pistol, but he knew better. Whatever that was―he had to find Josephine. He left the radio station and looked around, saw a few ghouls moving through the streets.

Where was she? Who would she know to hide her beyond Dr. Donald? She wasn't back at the bar, she wasn't at the facility―and Dr. Donald had been very upset at the thought of Josephine running around St. James, _alone_ ―

He swore, and felt guilty again. Tony stamped down the street, and asked a nearby ghoul for directions to Alexy Ilyin's home.

If that asshole had her he _would_ kill him, this time.

* * *

Alexy had gone home, and was sitting on his couch, looking at the bottle of hotwater. Wouldn't be the first time he contemplated ending it all. Hell, most ghouls had done that more than once, and Alexy usually thought about it once a year.

He was bored. That was the problem. Back in the day, there had been the work, the espionage too, and the oodles of young women who were happy enough to throw themselves at him until they figured out he wasn't looking to get married. Usually after he'd had his fun, which was all the better for him. And the cocaine, man, he missed the cocaine sometimes. Probably a good thing that he had kicked that habit, though.

He swirled the liquid inside the bottle and watched it moving. St. James was one of those places where you could literally do anything you wanted. No one stuck their noses into anyone else's business―and he laughed at himself, because who the hell even _had_ a nose around here? Every other month, new ghouls would come, get themselves rolled, raped, or killed. Sometimes in that order.

He sighed and felt his blood sluggishly tumbling through his body. It would have been so fucking _sweet_ to have Joey tied up to his bed. He wouldn't have been bored, _no, sir._ He could imagine her sweaty little body under his, writhing in pain and pleasure. He closed his eyes and smiled.

The thought made him both excited and upset. He hadn't got her, and he had no chance in hell, now, not with that fucking merc knowing what he was up to, and not with that awful outcome. Maybe Joey might feel sad for him getting beaten―she seemed like she'd been sympathetic in the bar―but she wasn't coming back. Not after such a display from Tony, who hadn't ever shown violence toward any ghoul on the island. Alexy wondered why Tony had gotten intense so quickly, but figured it was probably because Joey was drunk and she'd never been drunk before.

And that had been a sight, those shining eyes and face. The hotwater had worked like a fucking charm. He'd been ready to carry her off to his house, when Tony showed up. It frustrated him.

Alexy threw the bottle and it hit the wall, bouncing off. He growled, and covered his face with his hand. It wasn't like he couldn't go steal some smoothskin bitch from somewhere. Or even buy one―he had the money, damn, he was practically a fucking _millionaire_ in wasteland terms―but it wasn't the same. He wanted the powerful feeling that came from seeking out, acquiring, and taking what he wanted, with a minimal amount of persuasion.

So it had been a bad idea to use the hotwater, and God help him if she ended up worse off for it. He shrugged at the thought. Joey knew the drill. She wasn't stupid, just dumb at people things. And Alexy... he chuckled. Alexy had been trained to do exactly what he'd done last night for the benefit of an enemy country, stealing corporate secrets out from under the noses of fat cats in fancy suits while Mother Russia patted him on the back and gave him a fucking turnip.

No, he did not regret his life. He did not regret having done what he did, either to the capitalists or to Joey. He only regretted that he had, for once in his pathetically long life, _failed_ at something he knew how to do better than any other man alive.


	6. Super-Ghoul

17 SEPTEMBER 2176

EVENING

* * *

Joey thought at first that Marcelo was going to vent his rage from being awoken so rudely, onto her, and she waited for the hit. But the massive ghoul simply sat up in his bed and stared at the sound of the alarm coming from the facility. She looked up at the building from where she was lying on the ground and pushed herself up onto her elbows.

"What the hell is that?" she asked.

To her surprise, he immediately stood, grabbed her around the chest with one arm and hauled her up, placing a hand over her mouth and making the closest approximation of a shushing noise that he could. He crushed her to his chest, her head on his shoulder, legs dangling. Marcelo pulled her to the shack wall, leaning against it, and looked off to the distance, eyes moving back and forth.

She made a questioning sound and he squeezed her face tighter, painfully. His free hand reached out for the rebar club. Joey swallowed and looked around in the field of vision she had, and she groaned to herself in her head. Where was the threat? She couldn't even hear anything. She stuck her tongue out and licked his hand through her squished lips, trying to get him to let go. _Eww, oh, he has something really gross on his hands._ She gagged a little.

Marcelo squeezed her tighter and jerked his hand back from the club, punching her in the side with a jab. She wheezed. He shot her a glare and grabbed the club, then held it one-handedly, staring up at the middle of the island.

Joey heard a noise, cracking dead trees, and looked around to see what was going on. Still nothing. Marcelo rumbled in his throat, and Joey could feel the vibrations in her back from his chest.

She wondered, distracting herself from the situation, what his story was. Alexy had told her many a story about his time before the War. Mostly his stories involved the chemical company he'd worked at and the world in general; they were often boring, but Joey had listened anyway. Marcelo... she glanced at the rebar club being held in a strong hand, attached to an equally strong arm, and she knew he was a tough bastard. How did he get that strong? Ghouls didn't regain muscle mass, or build it, after becoming ghouls. She looked at his hand on her face and saw a patch of skin with a black mark on one knuckle.

Her head spun a little from crossing her eyes, and she heaved again. Her stomach was not cooperating with her, not since that whiskey last night. She wouldn't get drunk again for a long time, not after _that._

A strange loud breathing noise entered her ears and she saw a tree trunk go flying from the center of the island toward the water, bouncing along the sand. Marcelo's hand tightened on her again and she groaned, but her breath stilled in her chest when she saw the monster come up over one of the hills around the shore.

Must have been at least eight feet tall, with knobbly orange skin and gangling arms, muscles extended and pulled taut. The legs were shorter than it's arms, so the knuckles of his―her?―hands were dragging along the ground, and he―she?―was loping along the ground easily with arms trailing behind him― _her?_

Looked physically similar to a feral ghoul, but much larger, much stronger, and more mutated. The shoulders were heavy, thick with braids of muscle, and it moved with the familiar hunched look of a feral. Joey could see it was gender neutral, and had stringy black hair in patches along it's head. She could also see those telltale cloudy eyes, full of hate and vigor. She whimpered, and her hands grabbed onto Marcelo's arm, clutching for dear life. All of a sudden, she no longer wanted to die.

" _Jesucristo_ ," Marcelo whispered, and Joey panicked, because now he sounded uncertain, and that was entirely more frightening than some unknown monster from the wastes. It was _legendary_ that Marcelo didn't get scared. Her hands scratched across his arm, and he relaxed his hold, gripping the rebar club with a shaking hand.

Joey dropped out of his grip and crawled frantically away from the shack. The monster must have seen her movement. It roared, then used it's arms to gallop toward her. She got up and ran down the shore toward the water.

Marcelo suddenly rushed out of the shack and brought the rebar down, with both arms, onto it's back, knocking the monster to the side. He growled in a feral way, and lifted the club, ready to bring it down on the creature again. Before he could, the thing reached out a quick arm and swiped at him, shoving him sideways and away. It moved up onto it's feet and roared at him.

Joey ducked behind the tree trunk that it had thrown, earlier, and wished she had a weapon. She'd not brought her own pistol with her, because she was so upset when she fled from Stockton. ...Not that a 10mm would do much damage to whatever that thing was.

Marcelo stood, using the club to push himself up, and laughed. He was grinning. Joey felt relieved. If he wasn't scared anymore... She looked around and saw a few ghouls gathered at the edges of buildings, one even on top of a shack, looking at the scene. The alarm from the facility was still blaring, and it rubbed on her nerves.

The ghoul bouncer put the head of the club into his hand and stared down the monster. It was making all sort of noises, growling, rumbling, screeching, and smacking the sand with those strange long arms. Marcelo grinned wider. " _Voy a matar a un guajona!_ " he bellowed, and put his arms up in the air, waving the club. Someone cheered, and Joey wondered what he was saying.

He ran at the creature, then, and swung the rebar club up from the ground to hit it under the chin, knocking the weird ghoulish head backward. His feet sank into the sand from the opposed force, and the thing grabbed him in a swoop, pulling him up into the air, then slammed him to the ground. His club flew across the sand, away from him. She heard him grunt and yell in pain, saw him spit out black blood onto the ground, turning his head sideways.

That upset her, for some reason. She started to see red tinging the outside edge of her vision, and her heart pounded hard. Joey felt... angry, truly angry, and she'd never felt that way before.

* * *

Tony hit Ilyin again, cracking him through the gap in his cheek and felt the soft bone break under his hand. He clenched his fist, thankful he was wearing leather gloves, and adjusted his hand on the ghoul's shirt, gripping hard.

"And you haven't seen her?" he asked, again.

Ilyin spat blood and coughed, then laughed manically. "I have _not_ ," he mumbled. "I slept off that _fucking_ _concussion_ you gave me, asshole!" He glared back at Tony.

Tony wanted to hit him again, but he knew it wouldn't help. He dropped the ghoul to the floor, without a word, and strode out of the house, running his clean hand through his hair. Where the hell did she go?

His temper was rising, now, and it was far different than it had ever been before. Before, she wouldn't have run off on him at the pier, or gone drinking with that jackass Ilyin―though she might have been at the bar―and he thought about that. Why it was different, this time.

Celia Landis had her own problems, he knew. His father had told him that she was ill. It appeared to be fatally so, and Josephine might not have been aware of that. Losing her mother, after that mess with Jack and J.L., would destroy her, Tony knew. He sighed, looking up at the sky, seeing the slow fade to darkness.

So, if he assumed she'd run away because she couldn't deal with the strain―he grumbled. Drinking wasn't going to help that. Josephine wasn't knowledgeable enough to know that, though. She hadn't dealt with junkies her entire life, like the men at ARC.

Of course, she could have just run away, for the same reason as she had, in the past. Because she wanted adventure, or something like that. His father snickered at the idea. Apparently it was a Landis family trait. Along with being willfully stupid and getting into an _insane_ amount of trouble. His father warned him about that the minute he'd figured out Tony even remotely liked Josephine. Tony admitted to himself that his father had been right about the trouble.

The alarm was still going off, and three ghouls running past him seemed determined to get to some point on the eastern side of the city. He looked after them, footsteps echoing in the silence between the alarm fading and starting. Then he heard another sound, much fainter, but dangerous, nonetheless.

Tony turned to the east, looking out over the encroaching darkness, and his feet began to move toward the shore of Lake Michigan.

* * *

Mona shuffled out of the facility to address the growing number of ghouls at the door, and moved from foot to foot, anxiously.

1648, she unleashed a monstrosity onto the world, unintentionally.

She should have never experimented without a more secure facility. Her chest tightened and she breathed quickly through her nasal cavity, her mouth forced into a permanent scowl by the rigid flesh around her mouth.

The mechanic, Foster, and the local hairdresser, Norma, were waiting for her, with a couple of others. She crooked a finger at Foster and Norma, and drew them into a conversation. They would have to translate for her, because her voice was failing in her chest and she could barely talk as it was.

The last time―she snorted, frustrated. The last time hadn't been _her_ fault. Dr. Jameson, gone now, had let that one go on purpose, and it had only been a feral with a pump attached to the nerve bundle in it's spine, feeding it a chemical mixture that rightly should have killed it. It hadn't been tube-fed a modified FEV virus combined with monoamine neurotransmitters for three weeks, nor had it gotten very far.

She explained the concern to them, and they told the group at large, which scattered to the island corners. Norma disappeared, too, but Foster remained behind and looked up at the facility doors, curiously.

"Wha oo wan?" Mona griped at him. She had to figure out how to take down the monster she'd created, without destroying her completely. She needed tissues, blood samples, hell, she'd even take an _eyeball_ at this point. Something, to tell her why the virus reacted in such a manner.

"This place, it stood up to the bombs?" he asked.

Mona rolled her eyes. "Ov-ee-us."

"Could it be used as a shelter, if this... thing, that you made, can't be killed?"

She shrugged. "Guess so," she said, the first non-mumbled words she was able to manage in a long time. She smiled a little at that.

"Is it okay if I let the others know that we can come here, to get away from that thing?"

Mona shuddered. "No!" All those feet tromping through her lab, through the work floor! She'd have to halt production for a few months, just to get everything back into order.

Foster looked at her with a weird expression, then grimaced a little, and nodded. He turned away. "Alright," he said.

From his dejected manner, Mona knew she had said the wrong thing. And she had just let a monster escape the facility, without her knowledge. She pinched her face again and sighed. Foster smiled half-heartedly to himself, then trudged away.

1730, she locked herself into the work floor, searching through her employees' desks for clues, and trying to distract herself from the monster on the loose.

* * *

Marcelo opened one eye and stared up at the thing that had him pinned to the ground, opening its mouth to bite him. He could barely breathe with it pushing into him. He kicked up, lifting his lower body off the ground, and connected with the neck, and it's head went over his shoulder into the sand. He couldn't get the hand off his chest, it was too strong. _Too_ fucking strong, even for Marcelo.

He gritted his teeth and stared up at whatever that fucking thing was, some kind of super-ghoul or something. It made noises like a feral but looked like a goddamn Super Mutant. He knew those things, they were almost impossible to take down. Whatever this thing was, if it was like that, he was probably going to get fucked up, _real_ bad.

But Marcelo wouldn't die. There were some things that stayed constant in the post-apocalyptic world, and that was one of them. Marcelo would _not_ die.

"Hey, asshole!" the stupid girl yelled, and the super-ghoul looked up at her, hissing and rumbling. _Fucking idiot,_ he thought. _I should have killed her, saved her the fucking hassle of getting herself eaten._

He choked a laugh at that thought. _What bullshit._ The thing turned it's head to the much nearer sound, and roared at him. He grabbed it's wrist, lifted his legs off the ground, wrapped one around the thing's skinny arm, and kicked it square in the face. It stumbled backwards, letting go of his chest, and air rushed into his lungs, blissfully. He did not let go, though, and kept up the assault, kicking it repeatedly in the head as it lifted him off the ground, howling in pain.

After he landed a few good kicks and felt it's flesh start to give under his boot, it lifted him straight into the air and began to bring him down. Marcelo wasn't about to let it slam him into the ground again, so he let his legs drop and swung out and away, letting go of the super-ghoul at the last moment. He hit the sand stomach first, but rolled away and moved out of the reach of those freakish arms.

The smoothskin bitch threw a piece of wood at it, bouncing off it's chest, and it roared at her, then loped down and away. _Fuck!_ He jumped up, grabbed his club, and felt his legs screaming at him―or maybe that was the stupid bitch―as he caught up to it. He raised and brought down the club, slamming it into the thing's head. It fell forward, making an enraged noise.

Marcelo felt good about this. If he could kill this thing, bring it down, he'd get back his rep from that fucking smoothskin merc putting a gun to his head. And if he saved the stupid girl―he glanced at her and saw her scrambling away from the super-ghoul, back to his shack. If he managed to keep her alive, at least, no one was gonna say shit about Marcelo being a rotten villain. He grinned, and she saw him, too. That was fucking _great!_

He lifted the club from the super-ghoul's head and backed up a few steps, then started to swing it in the air. The thing raised itself from the ground, and threw it's arm around, and he smashed the club into it, meeting the arm halfway. The sound of cracking met his ears, and he liked that.

It kept moving, hit him, and pushed him away. He relaxed and let it carry him over the sand, rolling to a stop. It shook the arm and made little motions with thick fingers, growling, then screeched at the top of it's lungs. _Fucking good!_ Marcelo stood and adjusted his grip on the club. Maybe the goddamn thing would go down easy if he could cripple it's other arm, too.

He eyed it. It wasn't moving away from the spot, just standing there, making noise. It turned an eye to face him, cradled it's arm. Wasn't entirely feral, then. Probably the same reason Super Mutants seemed so fucking tough, if it was able to at least think for itself. He snarled at it, made a face. " _Hagámoslo!_ " he called, taunting it. "Come on, _bitch!_ "

And the stupid smoothskin came bolting from his shack with a goddamn piece of wood, and hit it in the head. If she survived the fight, he was going to crack her head open. _Jesuchristo_ , she was as soft in the fucking head as her skin was!

The super-ghoul growled and grabbed the girl with it's uninjured arm, squeezing her around the waist, and she screamed. Marcelo was about thirty feet away, had no option but to charge it and hope the girl didn't get hit. He yelled at it, as he ran, and spun around with the club.

It smacked satisfyingly into the thing's head, and bits of blood and bone fragments sprayed everywhere. Marcelo released the club, watched it fly across the sand, and slowed to a stop, yelling loudly to the crowd that had appeared to watch the fight. A cheer rose, but not as much of one as he wanted. He'd just fucking killed something that was capable of taking the entire city down, and they _did not give a shit._

He grinned. That was St. James, for you.


	7. Hotwater

17 SEPTEMBER 2176

NIGHT

* * *

Joey was aware of the pressure around her stomach being released, and she breathed in carefully, feeling the pain in her abdomen. She turned her eyes to see the monster in front of her, head smashed to pieces, sprawled out on the sand. She moved away from it on her elbows, and saw Marcelo out of the corner of her eyes.

He lit a half-crushed cigarette and sat down against the monster, smoke curling up out of his nasal cavity. Didn't look at her, just stared out at the water and looked almost thoughtful. His club was laying on the sand, near the water, and blood and guts were everywhere.

On her, too, and she grimaced at the weird smell coming from the monster. She flicked a piece of what was probably brain matter from her arm and stood, her legs not wanting to obey. She moved down to sit beside him and put her legs out in front of her, hands in her lap.

The sky was dark, no stars visible. It felt for a moment like they were the only people in the world. It was surreal, and she was more than a little unnerved by that.

Marcelo grunted at her, offered her the cigarette he'd lit, and she took it, carefully. He lit another and leaned back a little.

"What the _fuck,_ " she said, shakily, "was that thing?"

He chuckled. "Fuck if I know," he muttered.

Joey looked up at the crowd, now slowly moving away. A few were coming closer and she didn't know what to do. _Run away?_ Tony was still out there looking for her, but this... thing had happened. Lots of new things had happened, the last two days. She inhaled softly on the cigarette. That was a new thing, too. She started coughing, tossed it away.

Marcelo put an arm around her shoulders, loosely, and she quailed a little. She had _wanted_ to help him. She was a good person, really. He wasn't. What was he trying, _touching her,_ after nearly trying to kill her? He'd... stopped. When she'd asked him to kill her. She couldn't make heads or tails of him. Joey glanced up, and regretted it. Damn, he looked like he wanted to eat her alive. A tremble ran through her.

" _JOSEPHINE?_ " Tony's voice rang out over the air. She shook even more, and unintentionally curled up closer to Marcelo. He chuckled again, and pulled her tighter to him. Her heart felt like it would explode from fright.

Tony ran across the sand. He skidded to a stop in front of the monster, the ghoul, and the girl. Joey had the presence of mind to realize what position she was in, but couldn't do anything about it except wait for the rising blood to reach the top of her head and spew out. She looked down at her knees and wondered what Tony would think.

"Josephine?" he asked, cautiously, and she saw him stare at Marcelo with a funny look on his face.

"Fuck off, merc," Marcelo rumbled. Tony glared at the ghoul now.

"Go away, Tony," she managed. "Leave me alone." She didn't really want him to... but she didn't want the bouncer to kick his ass, or something. _God,_ she was embarrassed! Marcelo's arm was warm around her shoulders, against the night air. She felt the sand cooling under her foot, one shoe on, the other lost at the shack.

"You have to go home," Tony said. "I mean that. You _can't_ stay here. This isn't a place for people like us."

Joey rubbed her face and felt the sticky blood of the monster smearing. "I don't really care," she said, tonelessly. "Get lost, Tony."

Marcelo chuckled a little. "You heard the lady," he said, and flicked his cigarette away. Joey wondered if he was tired, at all. He didn't seem like he was.

Tony muttered something under his breath, looking directly at Joey. "If I have to call in ARC, or your _mother,_ I will have to tell them everything," he said. "That's including that prick getting you drunk, and this―whatever _this_ is." He gestured at the monster, and then at her and Marcelo. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Alexy," Marcelo grumbled, and frowned. "Put hotwater in the whiskey."

" _What?_ " Joey asked, turning to the ghoul. He was staring up at Tony, some unspoken words in his gaze. She had a hard time believing that Alexy would try to poison her, like that. Unless―unless he was really going to try to have sex with her, and didn't want her to be able to say no. She stared at her feet and her face was like fire. Alexy didn't seem like that kind of person, to her.

Tony clenched a fist. "I am going to _kill_ that motherfucker," he growled. Joey's head snapped up, her mouth open. Tony never swore. What―?

Nobody said anything, and nobody moved for a moment. Joey was the first to break the spell, shifting out from under Marcelo's arm, putting her legs back out in front of her. She sighed. Marcelo moved his arm to touch her, and she shivered as he ran his hand down her back. He wasn't looking at her, just... _touching_ her. It was weird.

Tony saw that, and his eyes narrowed at the ghoul. "Back off," he said, in a cold voice. " _Stop._ "

Marcelo grinned a little, turned his head to stare down Tony. "Marcelo does what he _wants,_ " he said, and Joey recognized the difference in his voice. She wondered why he spoke in a different way, pretending to be dumber when he was being rough. And his voice had a different sound to it. She shot him a glance. He looked just like he had before, in the bar, leaning against the wall. Not like when he was shaking the shit out of her, earlier. Then he'd looked... sad.

She felt her stomach aching. She hadn't eaten all day, and she was very sore. She stood, abruptly, and walked away, down the shore.

* * *

Foster returned to his home after hearing all about the fight between Marcelo and the monster. He wasn't upset he missed it, at all. Norma was, and she'd stared a hole into the back of his head when he was trying to elude her through the streets. She kept pace with him and followed him all the way to his shack, before she darted forward and grabbed up one of his hands.

"You think I don't _remember_ what you _said_ to me?" she hissed.

Well, she wasn't high, so he could only assume that the jammer had finally fried her brain so badly, it wasn't bouncing back.

"Leave me alone, Norma," he said, trying to pull out of her grasp. "I don't know what you're talking about." She bared her teeth at him, then pulled his hand up to her mouth, and his eyes widened. " _Stop!_ " he yelled, and instinctively punched her with the other hand. She was stunned, and he yanked away his caught hand, cradling it to him.

" _Fuck you,_ Foster!" she shrieked, and started to lay into him. He bent over, let her rain blows down on his back and head, and hoped it would end soon.

 _The hell is this woman's problem?_ he asked himself. _Why is it only me?!_

She continued the assault for a few more strikes. Foster heard a loud, vibrating squish echo behind him, and Norma stopped whaling on him. He turned to see why, his hands shaking.

The smoothskin girl, Joey, was standing there, her fingers curled around a piece of asphalt. She was breathing hard, and the asphalt had blood on it. Norma was face down in the street, twitching, her head smashed in. Foster felt faint for a moment.

"Hey, Foster," the girl said brightly, dropping the piece of road and wiping her hands on her dress. She was covered in blood, and looked like someone had beaten her up. Bruises on her shoulders were hard to see on her dark skin, but were there. He saw she had no shoes on. "Do you mind if I invite myself to dinner?"

He made a strangled noise. "Wha―"

"I've had a hell of a day," she said. "I bet you have, too. How about you let me use your bathroom, I'll get cleaned up, and we'll have something to eat?"

His mouth bobbed up and down. _What the hell was―how―_ He shut his mouth and swallowed, then looked down at his hands. She'd saved him; Norma probably would have chewed every last piece of skin off his hands, if she had managed to beat him unconscious.

"Uhh―" he started.

"Great!" she said, and beamed at him, and Foster knew if he'd had skin left on his cheeks, he would have been blushing. "Can you unlock the door, please?"

He did so, and she bustled into the room, going to the tiny privacy screen in the corner of the room. He heard water running and some light splashing. He didn't want to think about all that unfair skin she must be exposing, and he gritted his teeth in frustration.

"So, what do you want to eat?" she asked him, glancing at him from the top of the screen. She was fairly tall, for a woman, but nowhere near as tall as Norma. He let his eyes slide to the door. If she wasn't dead right now, she would be soon enough. No one would stop to help her.

Somehow that made him upset. He didn't like Norma, but he didn't feel right, letting her bleed to death on the street. "I―" he sighed to himself. "I'll be right back," he told the smoothskin, and ducked outside.

He felt a lot better, away from her. He walked down to where Norma lay in the street, and checked her pulse. Well, she was dead. He hadn't expected her to be dead, but she was. Foster sighed, and moved her body away from the middle of the street to lean against a house on the other side, and returned to the shack.

"Do you want this, or this?" the smoothskin asked him, as soon as he entered the shack, holding two boxes of food.

Something in his head wobbled and he felt anger rising. That was weird, he thought, because he wasn't an angry person, usually. He grabbed both boxes and put them back on the shelf. "Get _out,_ smoothskin," he said, gruffly.

She frowned. "But―"

" _Get out!_ " he yelled. His voice startled him, and they both looked surprised for a moment.

She recovered, first. " _Fine,_ " she said, her voice hot. "Fine, I'm gone. All I wanted was to be _nice_ to you." She huffed and slammed the door behind her. Again.

Foster sunk into the chair at the table and put his head into his shaking hands. What the hell was wrong with her? His brain fogged up, once more.

* * *

Alexy laid on the floor of his house, looking up at the ceiling. He traced the cracks with his eyes for probably an hour, before he got up and went looking for his doctor's bag again.

Now... now he was angry. Before, he wasn't so pissed that he couldn't recover from it, with a decent bit of whiskey―that he'd have to buy from somewhere other than the Samson, _thank you,_ asshole―but now?

Now he was flat-out pissed. And he wanted to do something, something other than mope. Something... really horrible, and get rid of the nasty feelings he was having. Maybe he'd be able to let go of Joey, then. He smiled, and his cheekbone shifted in his face. _Fuck._

Someone knocked at his door, insistently. "Go away," he yelled, and winced in pain. He poured a bottle of water onto his face, hissing at the stinging feeling.

"Alexy!" Joey yelled. He stood straighter, an imaginary knife running down his spine. "Alexy, open the _damn door!_ Are you okay?"

 _Is that wicked smile in the mirror really mine?_ he thought, and he could feel the flesh on his decaying face moving, curling up.

* * *

Tony stared down the ghoul for a while, after Josephine left, wondering just what the hell he was doing. Obviously he'd killed the thing on the shore, but why was Josephine sitting with him, and what the hell was he trying to accomplish by touching her like that? He was livid. And that comment about Alexy Ilyin? He should have just shot the jackass in the bar, or beat him to death in his own house. His jaw clenched in anger.

He walked away a few minutes after Josephine left, and went slowly. He'd absolutely have to get ARC into the city, now. He could not continue the objective as it was, tracing her through the city, trying to capture her and take her home. He'd rather she came willingly, but she was obviously not going to do so, and he refused to literally drag her out of St. James. It didn't sit well with him, forcing her. That was what all these _fucking ghouls_ were trying to do―

And what the _hell_ was wrong with her, sitting there, _letting_ that asshole touch her like that? She wasn't a wilting flower, she was full-bloomed and standing tall. He knew her to fight like a razorback when she needed to, kicking with her strong legs, punching hard. It irritated and infuriated him that she had―what, _given up?―_ let some man she _barely_ knew―and she didn't know any of the ghouls here, he was certain, beyond Dr. Donald― _touch her!_

He stopped himself. _Calm down, Tony. Just... breathe. It'll all turn out, she'll explain what happened, once you get her away from here._

He sighed, and rubbed his face. Well, maybe it might be better to force her; he wasn't going to let her run around the city without someone to watch out for her, while a bunch of grimy jackasses wanted to get physical. Tony climbed up to the radio station roof, and loaded his flare gun. He shot it into the sky, aiming himself north. The flare glimmered for a little while, and fell into the water. Tony counted to two hundred, and shot another one.

After, he climbed down, and went to have a "friendly" talk with Alexy Ilyin.

* * *

Marcelo stared out over the lake for a few minutes, his hands still feeling the smoothskin. He barked out a laugh to the sky. That was a _great_ fucking fight! He elbowed the creature behind him, and pushed himself up. His legs were incredibly tired, but he didn't mind.

Ah, damn, and her fucking _face_ , when he was leering at her, after... A grin settled itself onto his face. She was a hell of a lot more fun than he'd originally thought.

He retrieved his club and went to work. No use in trying to sleep. It was too late, and Medicine Man was probably already angry that he hadn't shown up. He grumbled a little about that. Trust a fucking female to make him late, or lose his damn job.

He entered the Samson, and settled into his spot on the wall, nodding at the day guard, who had apparently taken over for him. Everything was back to normal. Well, except the few patrons who were willing to talk to him about the fight.

Marcelo answered a few questions, and provoked a few laughs, offers of drinks, and general remarks on his badassery. He enjoyed the bit of attention until he reminded himself that these fuckers were just as nasty as that monster, if only on the inside. The thought sobered him.

"Hey, is Alexy coming in tonight?" one of the women along the bar asked, a little loudly.

"Nah," another said. "Got himself banned. Didn't you hear? He got that fleshy freak drunk, and some other smoothskin beat the shit out of him."

Of course, no credit could be given to Marcelo for that one. He grumbled under his breath. He'd hoped the monster on the shore would be enough to make people forget. _Fuck Alexy, and fuck that smoothskin merc. Marcelo does what he wants._

"So why's that girl still hanging out with his mangled ass?" the first woman asked, her words blending together a little too much. Marcelo frowned. She was getting too drunk; he might have to kick her out. He turned his head to look at the pair.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, fuck," the first one said, "I just saw the smoothskin going into his house."

Marcelo's brain got up and jumped out of his head. He didn't remember what he did, but whatever high he'd gotten from the fight with the super-ghoul was gone, and he found himself standing at the door of that sick fuck's house, rebar club raised and splintered wood in front of him. His teeth were grinding together, and some buzzing sound running under his skull.

Fuck him, that bastard must have really gotten under his skin, yesterday. He shot a look back to the Samson, saw the door swinging open. If he wasn't in trouble for being late, he would be in trouble now. What the fuck was he thinking, getting involved in smoothy business? She was a fucking _stupid_ bitch, _baiting_ him, messing around, tempting fate. He growled.

But she was tougher than she looked, and she was brave enough to play with Marcelo, and that was something no one had done in _years._ He felt.. shame. It had been far too long, and he'd let it get to him.

It was too late to turn back now, though. He paused for a moment before entering the room, quelling the weird feeling in his chest and setting his jaw. He was going to splatter that rat ghoul fuck like _a goddamn bug._


	8. Damn Near Anything

18 SEPTEMBER 2176

VERY EARLY MORNING

* * *

Alexy finished tightening the straps on the bed, exhaling little puffs of air through his cheeks. It was a damn shame, that he'd had to hit Joey, knock her out. But he didn't have the patience to seduce her, or to even trick her into drinking more hotwater. He took a deep breath and looked down at the girl, straddling her on the dusty mattress.

He twitched, seeing the skin that laid out before him. He snapped the buttons that held her dress up and slid the straps up, the front down. Oh, _God!_ His hands couldn't still themselves, he _had_ to touch her.

Waves of pleasure went through him, reveling in the soft feel of the girl's breasts. He had _so_ many plans, he didn't know where to start. Well―he knew where he _wanted_ to start, to rip that green dress off her and shove himself deep inside that sweet spot, but no, he wouldn't. That was something he would build up to. _If_ he could hold himself back.

A little trickle of blood pooled out onto the bed, and he frowned. There shouldn't be blood... not on her head, anyway. He wiped it clean, and ran a finger down her forehead onto her lips, and shuddered in anticipation as his finger caught the edge of her bottom lip. Yes, _yes_. This was going to be the best thing that ever happened, to both of them.

His attention was drawn away by the sound of the door opening loudly, and slamming. " _ALEXY!_ " Tony yelled, and Alexy was glad that he had shut the bedroom door when he brought the girl upstairs. He got up off the bed, looked around. He didn't have any weapons up here―hell, he didn't even have his gun anymore, since Tony had kicked it out of his hands and someone had taken it from the bar floor. Fucking St. James. He heard the merc walking around downstairs, looking for him.

Alexy looked up at the ceiling and saw the large crack running parallel to the door frame. He had an idea. Moving to the door, he rattled the knob and waited for the the merc to stomp his way up the stairs.

When the knob started to turn Alexy reached up, grabbed the crack in the ceiling, and lifted himself off the floor. The door opened outwards and he kicked out with both feet, throwing the door aside, and impacted with Tony, pushing him backwards. The action sent him flying over the railing to the first floor below. Alexy dropped from the ceiling, dashed downstairs, and grabbed the television and slammed it into the merc's face, glass and vacuum tubes shattering everywhere.

Tony lay on the floor, twitching for a moment, then stilled. Alexy nodded, and tipped the T.V. off the merc's head with a boot. The man was bleeding, pretty badly, but breathing. Alexy didn't know if he should kill him or not―might be more fun to have him tied up and let him watch while he fucked Joey, everyone knew the smoothskin had a hard-on for her―but, _no_ , Joey wouldn't like that. She was a _good_ girl.

Well, he would tie the asshole up and maybe later he could have his revenge on the merc for cracking him in the head. Hell, maybe he'd even give the stupid man his own Glasgow smile.

Alexy grinned, at the thought. _Why wait?_ He grabbed a piece of television screen, and flicked up into the man's face, slicing one cheek all the way to the jaw muscle. A wonderful feeling flooded through Alexy's brain, and he felt the world get brighter, fuzzier. It was like being high on jet, but this didn't cost an arm and a leg. He put the piece of glass in his pocket, for later.

He dragged the man off to the kitchen and secured him with his own handcuffs to the fridge door, frowning at the trail of blood the man left on the living room and kitchen floor. Had to clean up, before he got started on Joey. It wouldn't do to have glass all over the place, and blood trails, if he intended to fuck the girl all over the house like he wanted to. She didn't have any shoes on.

He snickered a little. She wouldn't have _anything_ on, soon enough.

He retrieved the broom and swept up the glass and vacuum tubes, then wet down the floor and threw Abraxo down. The chemicals fizzed and bubbled. Alexy watched, his mouth curling up. _That would be a hell of a thing to do to a man,_ he thought, and his eyes shifted to the merc cuffed to the fridge. His mouth slowly moved wider, to a grin. See if that asshole enjoys a little chemical cocktail, maybe mix it with some hotwater so he couldn't move. Would feel real good on the new smile he'd just given the asshole.

He shuddered, and he felt like he had just done a line of cocaine, and he remembered the girl upstairs, and he came in his pants out of sheer excitement. Fuck, he _was_ out of practice! He'd have to go very slow, make sure he didn't wear himself out just thinking about his plans.

He left the Abraxo to fizzle on the floor and went back upstairs to the girl, closing the door behind him. "Joey, you have _no idea_ what a pleasure I planned for us," he said, and lowered himself onto the bed.

* * *

Tony hadn't seen the door trick coming. The first thought he had when he regained consciousness was that he needed to be more careful, or else he was going to get himself killed.

But, then, he felt pain, and his hands were extended over his head and he was in an awkward position, and he bolted upright, understanding. _Fuck!_ He could taste the blood in his mouth―oh, that motherfucker had _cut his face up_ like his own _―_ and the glass shards were stinging in his face, one stuck into the corner of his eye―there was blood all through his eye―he might lose his vision in it―his nose was broken―and his head hurt like a goddamn Delaine had stepped on him―and― _and_ ― _fuck! Josephine!_

And he was cuffed with his own _fucking_ handcuffs, laced through the handle of the fridge in Alexy Ilyin's kitchen, in a position of _utter fucking vulnerability._

He didn't swear, this time. He clamped his mouth shut, squinted his bloody eye, looked around, and nudged the chair at the table with his foot. He hooked it and pulled it close, pushed himself up, and moved to sit in it, looking at his hands.

Thank God his father had taught him contingency plans. He reached down with his mouth and grabbed out a bobby pin from his shirt under the leather armor, pinned to the collar. Slowly, he moved it to his fingers, which didn't seem to want to work like they needed to, and began to work on the handcuffs.

Fresh blood flooded into his eye at the effort, and he could feel the rent muscle in his cheek wobbling as he worked. Tony hadn't been particularly interested in his looks, before, but somewhere inside him his male pride was wounded that he'd been made ugly. It _would_ be ugly, too, and he couldn't grow a beard to save his fucking life, so it would always be front and center.

 _He should have just shot the motherfucking ghoul in the head when he found Josephine at the Samson._

* * *

Marcelo noticed the bloodstain on the floor, followed it with his eyes, and leaned to the side to look into the kitchen where it ended. The smoothskin merc fuck was cuffed to the fridge and looked like he was having a hell of a time trying to get free. Marcelo shook his head and ignored it. He might have helped the man, but right now his head was buzzing like a saw and blood was pumping through his chest faster than a Metro train. He didn't have the patience to deal with that.

He walked across the room, heard crunching glass under his boots, and looked down at a broken and bloody television. If the merc fuck had taken _that_ to the head―and it looked like he had, from the amount of blood that was splattered around―and stayed awake, shit, Marcelo ought to let him have the chance to best him again. That was impressive, for a non-ghoul.

He picked up the rebar club and swung it, slamming the wall. The whole house shook, dust crumbling down from the ceiling, walls wobbling around him. He grunted. Fucking Pre-War houses were built tough. Like Marcelo. He liked that.

He stepped onto the stairs and made his way up to the top floor. If he were Alexy―and he was a fucking angel compared to that rat ghoul _fuck_ ―he would have the girl on a bed, already. The buzzing in his head grew heavier. He'd have her on the bed and―

Marcelo paused for a moment. _Jesuchristo,_ he couldn't half remember what sex was like, anymore. It had been entirely too long. That made him _real_ fucking angry.

He growled, gripped the rebar club and stomped up the rest of the stairs, then wound up and smashed the first door he saw. The wood exploded and he watched it flying inwards, little thunking sounds following it.

"What the _fuck!?_ " Alexy yelled, as Marcelo moved into the room, standing in the door frame with the head of the club in his hand and an expression of loathing on his face. Alexy's eyes widened. Stupid fuck had stripped naked, and was kneeling over the girl. Marcelo's eyes began to water, for some reason.

He roared at Alexy, and raised his club up. Immediately, a thin strip of bloody glass was at the girl's throat, pressed into the side of her neck. Marcelo let the roar simmer into a disappointed growl, and stopped himself two steps from the bed.

Alexy's yellow-tinted eyes, in that beet-red horror face, were on him, slitted and looking at him with a triumphant face. A sharp popping noise followed the buzzing in Marcelo's head, and everything went deadly silent.

"What the fuck you want, Marcelo?" Alexy asked, his stilted voice loud in the quiet room. "You want seconds? Your own little _taste?_ " He grinned, slowly, his hand firm on the glass against the girl's throat.

Marcelo growled, and bared his teeth. "You're a rat ghoul fuck, Alexy," he spat.

"Preaching to the fucking choir, there." Alexy gave a pathetic little laugh. "We're _all_ monsters, in St. James. I'll let you have the girl when I'm done, if you want. Can't guarantee she'll be able to _walk,_ though." He licked the cuts along his cheeks and Marcelo's head started buzzing again. "I'm not letting you go first. You'll tear her in fucking half!" He laughed a high pitched, manic laugh.

Marcelo's eyes switched from Alexy to the girl on the bed. She was moving her foot, slowly. He growled again, turned his eyes back. "Alexy," Marcelo said, firmly, "get off the girl."

"Why?" the stupid fuck was agitated as he stared down the bouncer, the glass on the girl's neck scraped around. A line of blood beaded against her dark skin, and began to trail off to the mattress. Her foot twitched again, and he could see her eyes open slightly.

 _Fuck!_ Marcelo knew what she was about to do. And she would get her neck slashed, for it. He made a threatening noise at Alexy, and dropped the club to the floor, tossing the handle away from him. "Marcelo doesn't _need_ a weapon to beat rat ghoul fucks into the ground," he challenged.

Alexy looked down at the club, then nodded, and he looked bloodthirsty. "You want a fight? I think I'm developing a taste for slicing up ignorant assholes." His face curled into a god-awful smile. He wasn't afraid of Marcelo, anymore. That was good, because Marcelo intended to make him scared, _all over again._ He grinned at Alexy, and curled his fingers into fists.

Alexy pulled the glass away from the girl's throat, in a quick motion. She lifted her leg abruptly and kneed the rat fuck in the groin, knocking him forward into her head, and her teeth were on the ghoul's face, tearing into what she could reach. Alexy yelled in surprise.

Marcelo might have been amused if the rat fuck hadn't still had that piece of glass, and he lifted it, stabbing the girl through her shoulder. She screamed, and Marcelo grabbed Alexy by the throat, lifting him up off the bed. He roared again, spitting into the rat fuck's face, enjoying the surge of adrenaline. He was going to beat the fuck into a pulp, slowly. And it would be a _long_ time until Marcelo was ready to let him die.

He squeezed his hand on the rat fuck's throat. Suddenly, Alexy's head exploded above his hand, a bullet shearing through the ragged flesh, and Marcelo blinked in surprise. He tossed the body to the side, turning to face the door.

The smoothskin merc fuck was standing in the door frame, breathing in shudders, one eye squeezed shut and gripping the wood with one hand. The other was holding a pistol steady on the scene, and Marcelo watched the hammer pull back deliberately as he stared down the bouncer. He was bloody all over, his face still streaming blood from a slice through the cheek and his eye oozing with his heartbeat. The look on the man's glass-studded face was respectably intimidating.

Marcelo looked at the merc, appraisingly, and nodded in satisfaction. The merc was worth it, for sure. Marcelo would give him all he had, when it came time.

The stupid bitch coughed, on the bed, and whined a little. "Tony, put the _goddamn gun away_ and will one of you two _please fucking untie me!_ " she hissed, rattling her hands against the bed frame, kicking against the mattress. Her exposed breasts shook with the motion, drawing their attention.

And the ghoul laughed, because the stupid bitch was _definitely_ tough enough to play with Marcelo.

* * *

Mona's hand shook as she stitched up Joey's shoulder. The girl kept hissing and twitching, moaning about the pain. Mona was furious, and her words were unintelligible in her mouth as she tried to tell Joey off for the trouble she'd gotten into.

Tony Sellers had passed out, probably from blood loss, on the lone gurney in the small operating room. He was still bleeding, albeit slowly, and Mona had done her best to stem the flow so that he wouldn't bleed to death while she dealt with Joey, first. It wasn't appropriate doctoring behavior, but Mona didn't care. Joey was going to have to help her hold the man's head while she sewed up his face. Joey couldn't do that with a three inch long, two-inch deep stab wound to the shoulder left untreated.

"O-ey," she said, and directed the girl to hold Tony's head under the chin and crown. With tweezers, Mona pulled out the piece of glass stuck into the caruncle of his right eye, and quickly jabbed him with a stimpak near the wound site. She applied bandages, and taped it down. He had scratches on the cornea, too, and would be lucky if he had any remaining vision in the eye. She turned to the slice in his right cheek.

Alexy Ilyin. Mona didn't feel anything for the dead ghoul, not even hate. He was dead. There was no use in holding onto the emotions, any longer, the near-rage that she had felt when Joey explained what had happened in Ilyin's house. Emotions would make her patch-job on the mercenary shaky, and he deserved better than that.

Behind the two women, the bouncer from the Samson bar was silently watching Mona work. He'd carried Tony up to the facility when he passed out in Ilyin's house, according to Joey. Joey was worried about Tony, but only because she didn't want to be held responsible for his dying.

"Uncle Jesse will probably shoot me in the kneecaps if he dies," she moaned, and curled her fingers up near her eyes, crying softly. "He'll probably shoot me, anyway―"

And Mona shot a glance at the girl, shushing her, while she worked steadily, sewing the flesh together. He would have a scar. Scars were part of life in the wastes. But he would live, and being alive was more important than some hypertrophic scarring. Mona could see the smaller but still reddened scars along the young man's neck and shoulder, visible through the neckline of the leather armor. She "tsked" at that.

After Tony was sewn up and Joey was properly bandaged, Mona made her undergo a proper physical examination. Marcelo sat in the operating room with Tony, while Joey undressed in Mona's bedroom, and she looked her over.

 _Minor laceration of the scalp_ ; Alexy had hit her over the head with a piece of wood, but it was of little concern once it was cleaned up.

 _Minor laceration at the base of the throat_ ; from the glass that had caused other injury.

 _Two inch deep stab wound on the left shoulder_ ; sewn up and cleaned, it looked a lot better.

 _Vague fingerprint bruises on her shoulders and one ankle_ ; Joey just smiled and shrugged, and said she'd pissed off Marcelo. She said he put his knee in her stomach, too, but there was no bruise there, only tender flesh.

 _No other injuries._ Alexy hadn't managed to rape her. Mona was grateful, sighed in relief, and Joey looked at her with a question. Mona shrugged off the thought. Joey was safe.

The bouncer had some extensive bruising on what skin he had left, too, from the FEV-infected ghoul that Mona had been experimenting on. Joey told Mona about the fight, and Mona intended to retrieve the body as quickly as possible. Nothing she could do about his bruising other than to direct him to a radiation pool nearby. He looked tired, too, so she told him to go home and sleep. She would talk with Medicine Man, in the morning, and put that to right.

And Joey passed out after eating a table full of snack cakes and instamash, her busted body and brain finally caving to her incredible exploits in St. James.


	9. Twenty Year Truth

18 SEPTEMBER 2176

NOON

* * *

She stepped off the barge in the red light of St. James, her face behind the blastmaster helmet twisted in fear and pain. It had been a few months since Celia had stood on the shores of the island, and she could have gone the rest of her life without doing so, again. Painful memories of the past were dredged up in her heart, overlaid with new pain from her daughter and the wild antics Joey always seemed to get into. _Every time._

Thank goodness Barbara Landis hadn't had to put up with Celia's own shenanigans. The kind of pain she was facing, right now, she wouldn't wish on _anyone_. Celia shifted her feet, looking down the pier. Several more people disembarked from the barge, and others from another barge coming from Gladstone. Tony's double flare had brought everyone to the island, a sledgehammer of caregivers and friends with which Celia would apply force.

Three men in power armor―heavily armed ARC members Amos and Avery Royce, and Jesse Sellers with his purloined gatling laser that brought back even more pain for Celia―and Sue, with her youngest son Amory, both in leather armor and carrying rifles. And another figure, a much older figure, with white hair and walking slowly, but confidently, being led down the gangplank from the Toskey barge by Chloe Calhoun, her adopted daughter. Celia hadn't wanted Chloe or the old soldier to come along, but Bradley had been insistent that he be there "for the twentieth anniversary of Landis trouble" and he was practically a grandfather to Joey. Since Cameron had disappeared in the wastes, anyway.

She felt physical pain, too, but that was something she had become accustomed to. She could ignore that. The budding fear in her heart―she should have never gotten angry at Joey, for taking Lionel's revolver. She didn't _know,_ she'd never been told. ...There were a lot of things that Celia ought to have told her, but hadn't.

The group strode through the city, heading for Dr. Donald's facility on the hill overlooking the water. Celia knew that was where Joey should be, and if she wasn't, ARC would sweep the city looking for her. It would not be a pleasant day, if it came down to that.

She walked past a ghoul with odd-looking hands, cradling a dead ghoul woman, leaning against the wall of a metal shack. He looked so pathetic and sad, just muttering to himself as he rocked back and forth with the woman's mangled head in his hands. Celia felt tears rolling from her eyes. The last time _she'd_ cradled a ghoul like that―she swallowed a lump in her throat and felt herself shudder in a soft sob.

The group arrived at the hill, and Celia stopped in front of the doors, looking at a very tall, very strong, purple-colored ghoul who was standing guard with a rebar club spanning his hands. He looked down at her with a curious expression, then rumbled in his throat, threateningly.

"I'm here for Joey," she told him, impassively. "Stand aside."

He bared his teeth, and the door behind him opened. The purple ghoul turned his head to the side, and Joey patted him on the arm, gently. "It's okay, Marcelo," she said. "It's my mom. They can come in."

The ghoul stood aside and Celia was even more worried, and slightly confused, but also felt a pang in her heart for the last ghoul she'd known who was strong. Nowhere near as tough-looking as this Marcelo, but tough nonetheless.

Joey was injured, and Celia couldn't bring her words up to express how terrible that was. For a few minutes, she held Joey, rocking her back and forth, stroking her hair, and cried. And she cried hard, because if she lost Joey, then she would have lost everything that Jack had ever given to her.

"I'm okay, mom," Joey said, and Celia tore the hood from her head, and grabbed Joey's face, pressing her forehead to her daughter's. "I love you, Joey," she told her, and Joey could see the pain in her face, the redness of her eyes, the tear trails down her face.

Sue looked at Jesse, standing silently, and she nudged him, mouthing words. Jesse cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, where's Anthony?"

The words rang out clearly in the lobby, followed by Joey's sharp intake of breath. Joey burst into tears and started babbling about Tony, but her words weren't very clear. Fear stabbed into Celia's chest again, and for a moment she thought that Tony had been killed, and she felt indescribable pain that her child should live and theirs should die.

"I'm here," Tony said, and that pain burst like a bubble in Celia's chest. She stared up at the young man, and her face contorted at his appearance.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Jesse swore. Sue cried out, and her hands were on her son's face, turning him left and right, looking him over. He had a bandage over one eye and a serious-looking stitch job from the corner of his mouth to near his ear, and a smashed nose. Celia shuddered.

Amos Royce shifted his position and looked at Joey. "Young lady," he said, and everyone in the room barring the big ghoul became as still as death, "you are in _so_ much trouble right now..."

It was quiet for a full minute. Then Jesse started laughing and he elbowed Sue and asked if she remembered when Amos had said that to him, as a teenager.

Sue raised her eyebrow and declared that this situation was a little bit _different_ than two young freedom fighters being accosted by an ARC mercenary while fleeing from Paramount, but she smiled a little, and Tony even managed a chuckle, though he winced in pain afterward.

And Celia didn't even know what to say.

* * *

Marcelo went outside the facility after the motley group had started laughing. He parked his ass on a rock, lit a cigarette, and winced at his ribs, which had finally started to hurt from the blows he'd received during the fight with the super-ghoul. He stared out over the island, and watched the smoke curling against the deepening sky.

The doctor bitch had told him to go lie down in a pool of irradiated water. Well, fuck, that was what made him turn ghoul to begin with, wasn't it? Black-as-shit water puddles littering the ground outside the Vault back in Erie. Fuck _that_ shit, and _fuck_ that Vault, too. He didn't even want to think about it.

He didn't know what to make of the situation, as it stood. Medicine Man and the Samson... he snorted and the smoke shot out of his face like dragon fire. Fuck it, he was done with it. Boring fucking work, anyway, and he didn't really want to spend the rest of his life as a post-apocalyptic miscreation beating the hell out of ghoulified drunkards. Even if they _deserved_ it.

He stared at the water. Churning waves and the wind was picking up. The sky was preparing for a full-on onslaught, tonight. He'd get soaked, down on the shore. Marcelo grinned and looked up at the sky, holding his arms out in a "come and get me" motion directed toward the heavens.

Footsteps behind him and he ignored it, smoking the cigarette and imagining something that would probably just make him angry, in the end. _Stupid smoothskin ...girl._

"Marcelo?"

He grunted. Whatever she wanted, and he knew what _he_ wanted but he wasn't going to get it no-way-no-how, she had better make herself clear. His head was starting to hurt from lack of sleep. Felt like he couldn't turn off his brain. He didn't like that.

Joey sat down beside him on the rock, and he could hear the hissing of power armor, behind him. Watching her like a goddamn hawk, now that they had her secured. He'd be doing the same thing, if he had the pretty smoothskin in his hands.

"Thank you," she told him. He exhaled the smoke, quickly, and shot her an incredulous glance. "Thank you for coming to save me, at Alexy's house," she clarified.

He shrugged and leaned an elbow on a raised knee. "Whatever," he muttered. That had been somewhat embarrassing. The little girl had gotten under his damn skin, and now she was worming her way through the muscles around his dick. And other parts of him, but he wasn't sure what to make of _that_ one, yet. Marcelo hadn't thought about that sort of shit on a personal level for longer than the smoothskin had been alive, and now it was being forced on him like a belt sander. Didn't hurt, just jarred him.

"I could have died," she murmured.

"Everybody dies," he answered. "But not Marcelo." And wasn't that the fucking _truth?_ He'd spent too long not dying to even try, anymore.

"I appreciate you looking out for me," she said, slowly, and cast a glance at the other, behind them. "And for helping me on the beach," she added, and her voice was neutral. He looked at her, saw her eyes smiling at him, and he grumbled. She should have stuck around, he might have been able to resolve the weird feeling in his chest. ...Might have played a little more too.

"What do you want," he asked, starting to feel angry. There was no reason for her to be sitting around, thanking him.

" _Nothing!_ " she said, heatedly, and looked away.

Marcelo snorted. "Whatever," he said, again, and flicked the cigarette away from him. She sighed. He glanced over at her, caught the power armor behind them in his periphery, and then felt smooth arms slithering over his shoulders, lithe fingers gripping the muscles in his back.

What the _fuck,_ the smoothskin was hugging him, now. Marcelo grunted from the pressure, his ribs aching. He should push her away―even if she felt _real_ nice―he was a nasty old ghoul who'd shaken her up and all but threatened to rape her. Marcelo wasn't a _good_ guy. That wasn't going to fucking change.

"Fuck off," he told her, and pushed her off. He stood and walked off to the city, with his rebar club over his shoulder, and did not look back.

* * *

Tony figured he would go deaf, before his mother stopped her ranting about what had gone on. He hadn't told them everything. He knew better. He'd implied the events dealing with Alexy, but left out the drunkenness and the way Josephine had run off into the city. He didn't know much about the thing on the shore, and deferred to Dr. Donald about that. He implied that Marcelo had saved Joey from the monster―which was what he'd figured had happened―but left out as much of the weird shit that he could about the whole situation.

But he told his father everything, after his mother had worn herself down to a nub. His father sat with him in the operating room, and shook his head at most of it, and was sober-looking.

"Too much Landis, not enough Calhoun," he said.

Tony nodded. "Why did she run away, anyway? I wouldn't have gotten here in time, if the man on the barge hadn't told me he saw her headed here."

Jesse Sellers sighed and clicked his tongue in his mouth, then a tiny rogue smile came over his cheek. Tony felt a twinge of pain in his own, and tried not to think about that. "Celia says she found Lionel's gun," he said. "And Celia, well... She still hasn't gotten over that. Twenty years, as of September 16th."

"What was that?" Tony asked.

"She loved a ghoul," his father said, solemnly, "loved him so much he took down an evil bastard, ruling an entire city, just to save her. And he died, doing so."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "So... I beat the spread?"

His brother poked his head in to see why they were laughing, tears streaming down their faces and his father slapping his knees, and Amory shook his head at their chicanery with a jealous smile.

* * *

Joey sighed to herself, watching Marcelo leave. It wasn't until after she woke up with Alexy on top of her, and saw the bouncer standing there, that she realized she kind of _liked_ the ghoul. Well, kind of, in a weird way, and she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, yet. Seeing him standing in the room with that look on his face for Alexy, who was very clearly trying to do something to her that he ought not to have, and hearing his non-dumb voice cutting through the fog to wake her up... she sighed again.

Having the both of them seeing her half-naked should have been embarrassing, but she had been stabbed in the shoulder and she hadn't even been able to feel mortified until much later. By now, she'd come to terms with it, couldn't change it, and it wasn't like Tony hadn't at some point seen her naked. They'd grown up together, after all.

And she felt like it was somehow a reward to let Marcelo have a peek, given the way he'd acted after besting the monster on the shore. Like he'd earned his touching her, and seeing her naked. Blood rose in her face. Maybe there was another reason, but she wasn't going to think about it. She liked it better, the way she imagined it.

Joey looked up at her Uncle Amos and wondered what he'd made of her display of affection, toward the ghoul. He said nothing, his helmet under his arm, eyes surveying the sky. She glanced back after the ghoul and wished he hadn't left. She'd think of any excuse she could, just to spend a little more time with him. _...Why?_ It wasn't like she―

"You and your mother are very similar," Amos said, rubbing the gigantic beard he'd had ever since Joey could remember.

"What?" She frowned at him.

"She loved a ghoul, too," he said, and Joey startled so abruptly she fell off the rock and rolled down the hill a little way. Amos chuckled, above her. "You don't have to hide it, Josephine," he said. "No one is going to be upset, except for Tony."

"I don't―" she began.

"Trust me," Amos cut in. "It's better to admit this sort of thing. If Lionel had been more truthful, twenty years ago, you wouldn't even exist."

"What?" She made a face. "I don't get it," she said. Then her face felt hot and she scowled. "And I _don't_ love him! He's just some stupid bouncer at a stupid bar that I am never, ever, going to set foot in, _ever again._ "

Amos looked at her with his trademarked stare. It was a "I dare you to say that again look" combined with "You know I'm right" kind of look. Joey hated that. It always got to her, in the end.

"Anyway, he's not interested," she huffed angrily, and walked back into the facility. "And apparently I've got Tony up my ass, if I ever needed something like _that._ "

* * *

Mona organized a few people to bring the corpse of the FEV-infected ghoul up to the facility, where she collected as many samples as she possibly could, before it was disposed of through incineration. She labelled and stored the samples and sorted through her supplies, then telegraphed a message to Mr. Strange at the radio station to advertise for a new employee. Ilyin was one of the best she'd ever had, but work must go on.

She sat with Joey, before she left St. James, and the girl talked on and on about everything she could think of, besides what had happened the day before. Mona already warned her, told her not to come back without someone to protect her on the island. The place was dangerous for many reasons, one of which was Mona herself. And Joey had told her about the fight with the infected ghoul, and explained that she didn't think she would have any problems on the island.

Because of Marcelo. Mona frowned at the thought. Despicable that a girl would want to spend time with a ghoul, especially a violent and intimidating one like Marcelo. And hadn't he _hurt_ her, already? Mona shot the girl a sharp look, intending to ask her why, but her heart melted.

Joey was wearing that brilliant smile for another, now. Mona sighed.

At the end of the day, once the ARC mercenaries and the Landis-Calhoun family had gone home, Mona sat in her bedroom and stared blearily at the lamp. She rubbed her face and listened to the radio.

"Well, ladies and gents, it's that time again. I do so _hate_ to leave you with nothing but soothing music and sleepy tunes, devoid of my _amusing_ chatter, but even Mr. Strange needs his beauty sleep." It was the same every night. Mona remembered when Mr. Strange was just plain old Henri Metoyer, and she wished that she and he had not let their respective differences destroy their lives, before the War.

"Hey, but you all have a _nice_ night, and be good! Goodnight to my ladies and gents!" The radio crackled a little as the night time music began to play.

Mona laid on the mattress and wondered what change FEV-injections would effect on other creatures of the wastes. ...Maybe she'd find out.

* * *

 _"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."_

\- Dr. Seuss

* * *

END


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